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UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
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Religion  and   Historic   Faiths 


Religion  and 
Historic    Faiths 


BY 

OTTO  PFLEIDERER,  D.D. 

Professor  in  the  University  of  Berlin 


TRANSLATED  FROM  THE  GERMAN  BY 

DANIEL  A.  HUEBSCH,  Ph.D. 


Authorized  Edition 


NEW    YORK 

B.  W.  HUEBSCH 

1907 


Copyright,  1907,  bv 
B.    W.    HUEBSCH 


"Religion  und  Reugionen" 

Published  May  15,  1906. 

Privilege  of  Copyright  in  the  United  States 

reserved  under  the  Act  approved  March  3,  1905,  by 

J.  F.  Lrhmann,  Miinchen. 


CJ> 


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CO 

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PREFACE 


>-  The  lectures  here  published  were  dehvered  at 
S  the  University  of  Berhn  during  the  last  winter 
semester  before  an  audience  composed  of  students  of 


^    all  the  faculties  and  older  non-collegiates ;  some  of 
the  lectures  were  also  given  in  a  public  course  at  a 
high-school.     The    hearty    reception    accorded    to 
them  by  both  audiences  was  a  pleasing  proof  of 
present-day  active  growth  of  interest  in  things  re- 
ligious in  all  circles. 
"^        On   the  basis  of   stenographic   reports,   without 
^   material  change,  I  have  prepared  the  contents  of 
these  lectures  for  press;  so  that,  as  far  as  possible, 
the  spirit  of  the  spoken  word  would  be  caught  by 
the  reader.     The  limited  period  set  for  each  lecture 
required  a  curtailment  of  the  quotations,  but  in  most 
"  ^   cases,  they  have  been  inserted  in  this  volume  at 
^  proper  length.     The  close  of  the  semester  prevented 
\  J^he  actual   delivery  of   the   concluding   lecture  on 
-O^  Islam ;  completeness,  however,  made  such  an  omis- 
sion here  impossible. 

It  is  self-evident  that  within  the  narrow  limits  of 
these  lectures  only  the  essentials  of  the  wealth  of 
material  afforded  by  the  history  of  religion  could 
be  chosen  for  emphasis.     In  the  selection,  my  deci- 

5 


;;ii30;;^so 


Preface 

sion  was  giiided  by  the  wish  to  draw  the  clearest 
possible  picture  of  the  characteristic  features  of 
the  religions,  showing  their  points  of  difference 
and  of  contact.  The  three  introductory  lectures 
will  make  clear  the  view-points  which  served  as  my 
standards.  Perhaps  it  would  be  advisable  to  recom- 
mend to  those  readers  who  are  less  interested  in  the 
philosophical  reflections  contained  in  the  opening 
lectures,  that  they  begin  at  the  fourth  lecture,  and 
after  having  read  the  historical  matter,  turn  back 
to  the  portion  devoted  to  the  philosophy  of  religion. 

For  deeper  study,  I  refer  the  reader  to  my  larger 
work  "  Religionsphilosophie  auf  geschichtlicher 
Grundlage,"  (3  Aufl.  1896),  and  to  the  text-books 
on  the  general  history  of  religion  by  Tiele,  Chan- 
tepie  de  Saussaye,  Orelli  and  Menzies;  in  them, 
lists  of  books  treating  of  the  separate  religions  are 
given. 

Otto  Pfleiderer. 

Gross-Lichterfelde,  MarcA,  1906. 


TABLE    OF   CONTENTS 


PAGE 


I  The  Essence  of  Religion       ...      9 

II  Religion  and  Ethics         ....     29 

III  Religion  and  Science       ....     47 

IV  The  Beginnings  of  Religion         .       .     68 
V  The  Chinese  Religion      ....     89 

VI  The  Egyptian  Religion    .       .       .       .103 

VII  The  Babylonian  Religion       .       .       .   120 

VIII  The  Religion  of  Zarathustra  and  the 

MiTHRA  Cult 134 

IX  Brahmanism  and  Gautama  Buddha     .  153 

X    Buddhism 170 

XI  The  Greek  Religion         ....  190 

XII  The  Religion  of  Israel   .       .       .       .211 

XIII  Post-Exilic  Judaism 231 

XIV  Christianity 252 

XV    Islam 274 


Religion   and   Historic   Faiths 


THE    ESSENCE    OF    RELIGION 

Before  we  enter  into  the  consideration  of  the 
various  historical  rehgions,  we  must  make  clear 
answer  to  the  question :  What  are  we  to  under- 
stand by  religion  generally?  The  simplest  answer 
to  this  question  was  contained  in  the  etymological 
explanation  given  by  the  church-father  Lactantius: 
"  Religion  is  the  attachment  to  God  by  the  bond 
of  piety."  This  definition  is  entirely  correct,  but  it 
requires  explication  in  order  to  demonstrate  its  gen- 
eral applicability. 

As  is  well  known,  there  are  some  religions  which 
do  not  believe  in  one  God,  but  in  a  plurality  of  gods 
or  spirits,  or  even  in  some  vague  but  divine  some- 
thing, such  as  the  power  of  fate  and  the  like.  In 
order  to  make  our  definition  hold  good  for  these 
religions,  we  will  be  compelled  to  take  the  concep- 
tion "  god  "  in  a  general  sense ;  something  like  this : 
That  to  which  the  religious  man  feels  himself  bound 
is  a  supernatural,  world-governing  power.  True,  to 
this,  there  immediately  does  appear  the  objection 
that  the  gods  of  the  lower  religions  do  not  govern 

9 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

the  "  world,"  that  the  savage  does  not  even  have 
this  latter  conception.  The  conception  "  world,"  in 
our  sense  of  universe,  does  presuppose  a  trained 
understanding,  such  as  we  are  not  able  to  accept 
as  present  at  the  beginnings  of  mankind.  Never- 
theless, it  remains  correct  that  even  the  savage 
believes  "  his  world,"  that  is  the  sum  of  the  objects 
of  his  experience,  to  be  bound  to  his  god  as  the 
ruling  power.  Deity  everywhere  is  the  power  which 
unites  the  manifold  experience  of  each  separate  ex- 
istence, the  individual  to  his  social  group  and  his 
nature-environment  into  a  whole,  and  somehow 
ordering  this  whole,  governs  it. 

Toward  this  superior  power  man  first  has  the 
feeling  of  powerlessness  and  dependence;  he  knows 
that  his  weal  and  woe  depend  upon  it.  Naturally, 
he  feels  the  woe  more  keenly  and  in  so  far  it  was  not 
entirely  incorrect,  when  it  was  said :  "  Fear  created 
the  gods  in  the  beginning."  But  that  is  not  the 
whole  truth ;  man  has  thought  the  possessions  which 
he  had  or  hoped  for  to  be  dependent  on  the  divine 
power  as  well  as  the  evils  which  he  feared,  and, 
therefore,  he  felt  himself  bound  to  it  not  only  by 
fear  but  also  by  gratitude  and  confidence.  Goethe 
has  emphasized  this  side  of  religious  feeling  par- 
ticularly in  his  beautiful  words: 

"In  our  bosom's  pure,  we  struggle  ever 
To  yield  ourselves  of  our  own  free  will 
In  gratitude  to  a  higher,  purer,  unknown— 
We  call  it  being  pious." 

10 


The  Essence  of  Religion 

A  being,  to  whom  I  can  yield  myself  in  gratitude, 
is  not  only  an  object  of  fear,  but  also  of  confidence. 
Therewith,  mere  fear  becomes  reverence  and  the 
simple  feeling  of  dependence  rises  to  an  obligation 
to  obedience,  to  voluntary  subordination  and  sur- 
render. Toward  greater  human  beings,  before 
whose  power  we  bow  and  upon  whose  friendly 
attitude  we  depend,  we  have  respect  and  a  sense 
of  duty.  But  toward  men  this  feeling  of  attach- 
ment is  always  conditioned,  because,  despite  all 
superiority,  they  stand  on  a  level  with  us  in  the 
matter  of  human  limitation  and  imperfection.  It 
is  different  with  the  divine  power,  which  governs 
our  entire  universe :  it  stands  in  unmeasurable 
superiority  beyond  us  and  all  who  are  like  us ;  with 
regard  to  it,  we  feel  ourselves  to  be  absolutely 
dependent,  in  duty  bound  to  absolute  subordination, 
attached  to  it  with  all  our  being  and  our  will.  In 
so  far  Schlciermacher  was  right  in  his  character- 
ization of  religious  feeling  as  that  of  "  absolute 
dependence." 

This  definition,  however,  may  easily  lead  to  mis- 
understanding, as  though  religion  consisted  of  an 
unfree,  slavish  dependence,  which  excluded  any  and 
all  freedom.  Such  is  not  at  all  the  case.  In  the 
statement  that  we  feel  ourselves  i)i  duty  bound  to 
subordinate  ourselves  to  the  divine  power,  there  is 
contained  the  declaration  that  tliat  subordination  is 
a  free  act  of  our  will,  not  a  fate  which  we  suffer 
passively,   but   an   activity  on  our  part,   which   is 

II 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

demanded  of  us.  A  necessity  which  is  not  free 
rules  only  in  nature,  her  laws  act  automatically ;  but 
in  man,  the  law  of  the  whole  becomes  a  demand 
upon  the  will,  obedience  to  which  is  not  compelled, 
but  which  only  can  and  should  be  performed  volun- 
tarily. Schiller  has  put  this  difference  aptly  in  his 
well-known  distich : 

"Seek'st  thou  the  highest,  the  greatest?     The  plant  can  thy 
teacher  be: 
What,  lacking  will,  it  is,  be  thou  with  will;  that  'tis." 

This  attachment  to  God  through  the  will  is  the 
piety,  the  faith,  which  the  Apostle  Paul  has  desig- 
nated as  an  "  obedience  of  the  heart."  Further- 
more, man  is  not  afraid  that,  by  this  free  obedience 
or  surrender  to  God,  he  will  lose  his  human  free- 
dom and  dignity;  but,  on  the  contrary,  he  is  confi- 
dent that,  in  tlie  alliance  with  God,  he  will  achieve 
freedom  from  the  limitations  and  fetters  of  sur- 
rounding nature,  and  those  worse  limitations  and 
fetters  of  nature  within  us.  The  manifold  desires 
and  fears  of  the  natural  man  constitute  his  slavery, 
making  him  unfree  and  unhappy;  in  that,  the  Bible 
agrees  with  the  wise  men  of  all  ages — let  me  remind 
you  of  the  Stoics  and  of  Spinoza.  The  elevation 
above  nature  to  God,  the  surrender  of  personal  will 
to  the  divine  will  in  obedience  and  confidence  leads  to 
freedom  from  the  miserable  bondage  to,  and  degra- 
dation under,  nature.  Seneca  said,  at  his  early 
day :  "  To  obey  God  is  to  be  free." 

True,  as  to  what  this  release  means,  or  what  the 

12 


The  Essence  of  Religion 

content  of  that  happiness  is  which  the  pious  man 
seeks  MOth,  and  hopes  feis  from  God,  there  have 
been  widely  differing  notions,  each  on  a  level  with 
the  spiritual  and  moral  plane  of  ^development  of  men. 
From  the  pleading  of  primitive  peoples  that  their 
gods  should  help  to  defeat  their  enemies  or  bring 
rain  or  fruitfulness  to  their  fields, up  to  the  prayer 
of  the  pious  Psalmist :  "  Create  in  me  a  clean  heart, 
O  God,  and  renew  a  right  spirit  within  me !  " — there 
is  certainly  a  long  road  whose  stations  we  will  pass 
in  our  journey  through  the  history  of  the  religions. 
Despite  differences  of  content,  of  purposes,  of  reli- 
gious striving,  this  much  remains  unchanged :  man 
seeks  freedom  from  the  limitations  of  the  world  and 
from  the  unrest  of  his  own  heart  in  the  alliance 
with  God. 

You  know  that  beautiful  saying  of  Augustine  in 
his  Confessions :  "  Thou  hast  created  us  for  Thy- 
self, therefore,  our  hearts  are  restless  until  they  find 
rest  in  Thee."  The  theme  of  the  entire  history  of 
religion  might  be  found  in  that  sentence — the  driv- 
ing-force and  the  law  of  its  development  from  the 
naive  beginnings  of  primitive  religion  up  to  the 
highest  height  of  a  religion  of  the  spirit.  Note 
well :  in  order  to  understand  a  development  either 
of  the  natural  or  the  spiritual  life,  according  to  its 
innermost  meaning  and  principle,  the  lowest  forms 
must  not  be  taken  as  the  standard  of  measure  and 
made  the  explanatory  reason  of  the  whole ;  but  just 
the  reverse,  in  the  highest,  that  which  appears  last, 

■< 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

the  key  must  be  sought  which  will  explain  the  whole, 
even  its  crudest  beginnings.  By  the  acorn  one 
cannot  recognize  what  kind  of  an  oak  will  grow; 
not  until  the  tree  is  full-grown  is  it  disclosed.  The 
new-born  child  gives  no  knowledge  of  the  nature 
of  the  future  man, — it  does  not  become  known  until 
the  man  has  reached  maturity.  Thus,  too,  concern- 
ing the  essence  of  a  religion,  one  must  not  judge  by 
its  lowest  beginnings  but  by  its  later  heights ;  then, 
for  the  first  time,  the  deeper  meaning,  hidden  in  the 
beginning  as  the  unconscious  instinct  in  the  child- 
ish play,  is  uncovered  and  revealed. 

It  is  a  pity  that  this  is  overlooked  so  often  to-day ; 
we  would  be  spared  the  curious  naturalistic  theories 
of  some  scholars  who  are  industriously  engaged  in 
ferreting  out  the  crude  beginnings  of  religions,  but 
who  seem  to  have  no  sense  of  what  is  really  essential 
in  them.  As  a  type  of  all  such,  I  take  Feuerbach, 
the  best-known  and,  in  his  way,  the  cleverest  rep- 
resentative of  that  one-sided  tendency  which  has 
contributed  so  much  toward  discrediting  religious- 
historical  studies  and  causing  many  friends  of  reli- 
gion to  regard  them  with  suspicion. 

From  the  undeniable  fact,  that  in  the  lower 
stages  of  religion,  the  fulfillment  of  wishes,  mainly 
sensual  and  selfish,  is  sought  for  by  prayers  and 
sacrifices,  Feuerbach  drew  the  conclusion  that  reli- 
gion altogether  was  nothing  more  than  a  product  of 
the  selfish  heart  and  the  dreaming  fancy;  the  gods 
were   "  wishing-beings,"   whom   man    invented    to 

14 


The  Essence  of  Religion 

deceive  himself  as  to  his  own  weakness.  If  that  be 
true,  how  explain  the  riddle  that  a  simple  deception 
persisted  among  all  peoples  during  thousands  of 
years?  And  that  a  construction  of  unreason,  of 
the  diseased  egoistic  heart,  has  proved  to  be  the 
most  effective  means  of  conquering  natural  egoism, 
of  basing  and  upholding  reasonable  customs,  order 
and  culture,  in  short,  has  proved  to  be  the  principal 
means  of  moral  education  of  humanity,  as  the  his- 
tory of  religion  indisputably  teaches?  If  it  be  true 
here,  too,  that  "  by  their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them," 
then  by  their  reasonable  effects  we  may  draw  the 
justified  conclusion  that  according  to  its  innemiost 
essence  (naturally  not  according  to  its  constantly 
imperfect  forms  of  manifestation)  religion  is  not 
an  illusion  or  deception,  but  highest  truth, — and  its 
origin  is  not  to  be  found  in  the  unreason  of  the 
selfish  heart,  but  must  be  sought  in  reason  itself,  the 
divine  tendency  of  our  race,  which  contains  our 
capacity  and  destiny  to  rise  above  and  beyond 
nature. 

From  the  time  of  Plato  and  Aristotle,  all  earnest 
thinkers  have  agreed  that  the  idea  of  God  belongs 
of  necessity  to  our  reason.  We  differentiate  two 
modes  of  the  activity  of  the  reason.  As  cognios- 
citive  (theoretical)  reason,  it  strives  to  achieve  a 
harmonious  order  of  all  of  our  ideas  by  tracing  all 
particular  being  and  becoming  back  to  one  all- 
encompassing  uniform  cause.  This  uniform,  har- 
monious order  and  combination  of  all  the  varied 

IS 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

phenomena  is  the  idea  of  truth,  the  cHmax  of  theo- 
retical reason,  which  is  at  the  bottom  of  all  of 
its  will  to  know.  Thereupon,  reason  looks  to  the 
desire-activities  of  our  soul  and  seeks  to  establish 
order  and  harmony  there,  also,  by  classing  all 
objects  or  purposes  of  the  will  according  to  their 
relative  values,  according  as  each  is  not  only  pur- 
pose of  the  individual  for  the  moment,  but  for  all 
and  for  all  time;  and  here,  too,  reason,  striving 
for  unity,  does  not  rest  content  until  all  particular 
purposes  are  subordinated  to  one  highest,  abso- 
lutely valuable  purpose,  which  is  the  idea  of  the 
good,  tliat  which  ought  to  be,  the  climax  of  prac- 
tical reason,  which  all  reasonable  willing  and  striv- 
ing looks  forward  to  as  its  highest  goal  or  ideal. 
Will  it  be  possible  for  reason  to  rest  satisfied  defi- 
nitely with  this  dualism  of  highest  ideas,  the  idea 
of  the  true  and  the  idea  of  the  good? 

Let  us  remember  well  that  the  one  does  not  coin- 
cide absolutely  with  the  other;  on  the  contrary,  in 
the  world  of  phenomena,  both  always  form  a  more 
or  less  distinct  contradiction :  the  ideal  of  what 
ought  to  be  is  never  one  with  what  actually  is,  but, 
to  a  certain  extent,  always  bears  the  relation  of 
opposition  and  negation  to  present  reality.  So  it 
seems  that  practical  reason,  whose  guiding  star  is 
the  ideal  of  the  good,  stands  in  irreconcilable  con- 
flict with  theoretical  reason,  which  is  occupied  with 
the  truth  of  being.  Yet  it  is  one  and  the  same 
reason  which  seeks  to  bring  about  a  perfect  unity 

i6 


The  Essence  of  Religion 

and  harmony  of  our  whole  spiritual  life.  Will  it  be 
possible  for  that  one  reason  to  rest  finally  with  a 
conflict  and  a  dualism  of  the  idea  of  the  true  and  the 
idea  of  the  good  ?  Some  have  thought  reason  ought 
to  rest  content  thus,  because  a  resolution  of  this 
contradiction  into  a  higher  unity  will  not  be  capable 
of  proof.  Certainly,  in  the  world  of  the  manifold 
and  of  the  becoming,  of  space  and  of  time,  the  high- 
est unity  will  never  be  found,  the  contradiction  of 
is  and  ought  will  never  disappear  completely.  For 
that  very  cause,  if  reason  does  not  wish  to  give  itself 
up,  it  cannot  do  other  than  elevate  itself  above  the 
world  to  a  last  and  highest  unity,  in  which  all  con- 
tradictions, even  that  of  the  true  and  the  good,  are 
unified, — to  God. 

Yes,  God  is  the  word  which  solves  all  world- 
riddles,  even  the  most  difficult,  which  lies  in  that 
contradiction  of  is  and  ought;  in  the  idea  of  God, 
reason  striving  for  unity  finds  its  ultimate  object, 
in  which  alone  it  can  be  at  rest,  which  from  the 
beginning  hovered  before  it  always,  as  the  impel- 
ling motive  and  regulative  of  all  of  its  interpreta- 
tive purpose — determining  thinking, — actually  the 
alpha  and  omega,  the  presupposition  and  the  goal  of 
all  of  its  thoughts.  But,  because  the  idea  of  God 
is  the  presupposition  of  the  truth  of  all  of  our 
thinking, — the  basis  of  the  connection  of  our  whole 
world-picture, — therefore,  the  truth  of  this  idea  can 
not  itself  be  demonstrated  by  any  single  series  of 
thoughts,   and  can  not  be   laid  bare  as  a  single 

17 


Religion  and   Historic  Faiths 

member  in  the  connection  of  our  world-picture;  to 
expect  or  to  demand  that  would  simply  be  self- 
contradiction.  In  so  far,  it  is  true,  it  does  remain 
true  that  God  is  the  object  of  our  belief  and  not 
an  object  of  demonstrable  knowledge  by  reasoned 
proofs. 

This  belief,  however,  is  not  an  arbitrary  hypothe- 
sis,— taken  on  the  simple  basis  of  some  outside 
authority  or  even  by  denial  of  reason, — but,  on  the 
contrary,  the  belief  in  God  is  the  revelation  of  the 
innermost  nature  of  reason  absolute,  of  its  divine 
necessity  superior  to  all  arbitrariness,  or,  in  other 
words,  the  revelation  of  God  within  the  human 
spirit.  Naturally,  this  "  revelation "  does  not  re- 
lieve man  of  self-activity;  it  does  not  come  to  him 
as  a  finished  gift,  but  as  a  duty,  as  an  irresistible 
impulse  to  rise  above  all  finite  contradictions  to  the 
Supreme  unity,  which  is  the  cause  of  all  that  is  and 
the  goal  of  all  that  ought  to  be.  (Rom.  xi,  36. 
"  For  of  him,  and  through  him,  and  to  him,  arc 
all  things.")  It  is  the  necessity  of  the  task  which 
guarantees  that,  to  some  extent,  it  is  solvable ;  if 
it  be  a  divine  impulse  of  the  spirit  which  urges 
us  to  seek  God,  then  it  is  a  divine  power  of  the 
spirit  which  will  enable  us  to  find  him — find  him  so 
far  at  least  as  it  is  possible  for  children  of  Time  to 
grasp  the  eternal  Spirit ;  ever  more  and  more  closely, 
ever  shrouded  in  a  symbol,  ever  in  the  reflected- 
picture  of  the  finite,  ever  in  some  dark  riddle  of  a 
mysterious  secret. 


The  Essence  of  Religion 

But  however  inapt  our  words,  however  inadequate 
our  conceptions  of  God  are  and  may  remain,  the 
truth  of  the  behef  in  God  itself  is  in  nowise  shaken, 
resting  as  it  does  on  the  "  demonstration  of  the 
Spirit  and  of  power"  (i  Cor.  ii,  4-)-     The  belief 
in  God  gives  our  reason  the  guarantee  of  its  own 
truth  and  at  the  same  time  of  all  other  thinking  and 
knowing  in  the  world ;  it  gives  to  our  conscience  the 
firm  support  of  our  feeling  of  duty ;  it  gives  to  our 
will  the  courage  to  hope  and  to  our  action  the 
power  of  accomplishment.     "  What  the  reason  of 
the  reasonable  cannot  see,  a  childlike  spirit  does  in 
its   simplicity.  "     It  is  certainly   the  most  difficult 
task  of  human  life  to  find  the  compromise  between 
freedom  and  necessity,  between  the  world's  harsh 
reality  and  the  ideal  of  an  aspiring  heart.     What 
helps  man  to  perform  that  task  at  least  acceptably 
is  the  belief  in  God,  in  which  that  contradiction  finds 
eternal  solution,  because  He  is  the  cause  of  all  being 
and,  at  the  same  time,  the  accomplishment  of  all 
that  ought  to  be. 

So  the  belief  in  God  proves  its  truth  by  helping 
man  to  the  recognition  of  his  destiny  in  the  world 
and  to  the  fulfillment  thereof.  But  it  not  only  helps 
to  solve  problems,  it  is  itself— being  the  highest  syn- 
thesis, the  unity  of  the  deei^est  contradictions — the 
deepest  problem  offered  to  man,  with  which  he  has 
struggled  through  thousands  of  years  of  history 
and  will  have  to  struggle  in  the  future.  It  is  de- 
termined   of    God    "  that    they    should    seek    the 

19 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

Lord  if  haply  they  might  feel  after  him,  and  find 
him,  though  he  is  not  far  from  each  one  of  us. 
For  in  him  we  live,  and  move,  and  have  our 
being.     .     .     ."  (Acts  xvii,  27,  28.) 

The  subject  of  the  entire  history  of  religion  is 
given  in  these  words  of  Paul;  it  is  a  perpetual 
seeking  after  God,  an  ever-renewed  effort  to  feel  him 
and  to  find  him,  the  unfathomable,  who  is  so  near 
to  us,  the  intangible,  who  does  encompass  us  all 
as  our  life-element.  It  is  to  be  expected  that  in 
these  attempts  to  feel  and  to  find  the  highest  unity, 
the  balance  would  be  now  on  one  side  and  now  on 
the  other  of  the  two  contradictions  unified  in  God; 
and  a  glance  at  the  main  forms  of  the  historical 
religions  confirms  our  expectations.  Two  groups 
they  form :  the  one  group  seeks  God  in  the  world, 
as  the  cause  of  all  being,  as  the  reality  behind  all 
phenomena,  as  the  law  of  necessity;  the  other 
group  thinks  of  God  as  the  ideal  of  freedom,  as  the 
supermundane  will  of  the  good,  as  the  master 
and  director  of  history  through  which  he  will 
realize  his  purpose.  The  former  are  religions  of 
immanence  (God  in  the  world)  or  of  pantheism, 
relatively  polytheism;  the  latter  are  religions  of 
transcendence  (God  beyond  the  world)  or  of 
monotheism.  Each  of  these  ideas  of  God  has  a 
mood  of  piety  corresponding  to  it;  in  the  former, 
quiet  contemplation  preponderates,  a  feeling  either 
of  joy  or  of  resigned  submission  to  the  present 
condition  of  things  ordered  by  God;  while  in  the 

20 


The  Essence  of  Religion 

latter,  active  striving  preponderates,  the  struggle 
against  the  world  for  God  and  the  hope  of  a  future 
actualization  of  the  divine  good. 

Not  to  anticipate  too  much  the  historical  pres- 
entation which  follows,  I  will  limit  myself  to  a  few 
brief  suggestions.  The  classic  representatives  of 
the  first  kind  of  religions  (they  might  be  termed  the 
esthetic-contemplative  group)  were  the  Indians  and 
the  Greeks.  Both  began  with  a  childlike,  joyous 
nature-religion,  which  worshipped  the  workings  of 
the  gods  in  the  phenomena  of  nature  and  in  the 
arrangements  of  social  life,  and  regarded  the  divine 
only  as  so  far  above  reality  as  they  saw  the  estheti- 
cally  exalted  joy  of  life  and  beauty  of  the  world  in 
the  gods.  Gradually  the  many  nature-gods  became 
less  distinct;  contemplative  thinking  began  to  con- 
sider them  as  the  varied  manifestations  of  the  one 
divine  being,  which,  as  the  world-soul  or  Brahma, 
is  the  permanent  basis  behind  the  gay  round  of 
phenomena,  finally  became  the  all-one,  true  being, — 
in  contrast  to  which  the  world  of  the  many  and 
the  changeable  sinks  into  a  mere  unsubstantial 
semblance.  When  man  is  aware  of  the  semblance, 
when  he  grows  conscious  of  his  unity  with  the  all- 
one,  he  is  free  of  the  joys  and  sorrows  of  the  world 
and,  in  the  silent  rest  of  abnegation,  he  enjoys  the 
highest  inner  happiness  of  peace,  which,  removed 
from  the  changes  of  time,  is  superior  to  fears  and 
hopes.  A  contemplative  piety  this,  which  may  well 
satisfy  the  world-weary  spirit,  but  never  gives  cour- 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

age  or  strength.  It  was  so,  too,  with  the  Greeks, 
when  Homer's  beautiful  world  of  gods  was  lost  in 
the  pantheism  of  the  Eleatic  and  HeracHtean  philos- 
ophy and  Orphic  mysticism.  There,  too,  the  world 
becomes  vain  semblance  or  a  purposeless  circle  of 
phenomena,  a  senseless  child's-play  from  which, 
non-participating  and  hopeless,  the  wise  man  with- 
draws. 

And  now,  with  that  group,  contrast  the  religion 
of  struggle  and  hope,  conscious  of  its  purpose;  the 
classic  representatives  in  ancient  times  were  the 
Iranian  prophet  Zarathustra  and  the  prophets  of 
Israel.  Here,  God  is  the  supermundane  ideal  of  the 
good,  the  self-glorious  will,  which  does  not  evanesce 
in  the  world  but  thrones  above  it  as  its  Creator  and 
Lord;  at  this  time  the  struggle  for  lordship  still 
continues  against  the  inimical  powers  of  reality,  and 
only  through  this  struggle,  wherein  man  is  in  duty 
bound  to  fight  on  the  side  of  God,  will  His  rule  be 
triumphant  in  the  future  and  the  realm  of  the  good 
be  brought  into  being.  How  far  removed  from  the 
childlike,  joyous  optimism  of  nature-religion  are 
these  prophets!  But  how  far,  too,  from  the  life- 
weary  resignation  of  pantheism !  Their  piety  con- 
sists in  a  wrathful  and  condemnatory  opposition  to 
wicked  reality  and  in  a  battle  for  God's  good  cause 
against  the  false  nature-gods  and  against  the  un- 
righteousness of  men.  An  energetic  piety  it  is  which 
looks  upon  the  earth  as  a  field  of  battle,  upon  man 
as  a  fellow-soldier  for  God  and  upon  the  world's 

22 


The  Essence  of  Religion 

history  as  the  path  to  the  world-judgment  and  the 
government  of  God;  but,  naturally,  it  is  not  free 
from  the  one-sidedness  and  the  warmth  of  men  of 
will  and  militant  nature. 

And  now,  how  about  Christianity?  It  stands 
above  the  contradiction  because  it  sought  to  com- 
bine both  sides  into  a  unity  from  the  beginning — 
the  immanence  and  the  transcendence  of  God,  the 
salvation  of  man  that  is  and  that  ought  to  be,  the 
mood  of  combat  and  of  hope,  and  that  of  peace  and 
of  joy  in  the  present  inner  possession  of  the  highest 
good.  On  the  one  hand,  it  says,  "  Thy  Kingdom 
come  "  (and  "  perish  the  earth,"  the  oldest  Chris- 
tians added  in  their  pessimistic  view  of  the  world). 
On  the  other  hand,  there  was  a  conviction,  present 
from  the  beginning,  that  the  Kingdom  of  God  is 
now  here,  internally,  within  us,  in  the  form  of  the 
righteousness,  joy  and  peace  accomplished  by  the 
divine  spirit  in  the  heart.  (Rom.  xiv,  17.  Luke 
xvii,  21).  Here,  God  is  the  supermundane  Lord, 
who  guides  history  toward  the  puipose  of  his  com- 
ing Kingdom  and  who  will  destroy  his  enemies  all 
on  the  great  day  of  judgment ;  while  there.  Christian 
faith  in  salvation  holds  the  union  and  reconciliation 
of  the  human  and  the  divine  to  be  a  completed  fact 
in  the  humanization  of  the  Son  of  God  and  as  a 
permanent  presence  existing  through  the  indwelling 
of  the  divine  spirit  in  the  hearts  of  God's  children 
and  in  the  congregation  of  the  faithful,  whom  he 
consecrated  as   the  temple  of  God.     Accordingly, 

23 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

the  pious  mood  is  a  constant  intermingling  of,  or 
oscillation  between,  the  feeling  of  peace  and  joy  in 
the  consciousness  of  salvation  and  alliance  with 
God  and  the  unstilled  longing  and  hope  for  the 
future  appearance  and  completion  of  the  freedom 
and  glory  of  the  children  of  God.  Thus  Chris- 
tianity seeks  to  unite  into  a  unity  in  itself  the 
opposing  forms  of  earlier  religions;  therein  lies  its 
great  superiority  of  abundance  and  strength  of  re- 
ligious truth,  but,  also,  its  greater  difficulty  of 
mediating  between  these  varied  moments  bound  up 
in  the  nature  of  its  principles  into  a  unity  theoreti- 
cally and  practically  perfect.  It  is  this  mediation 
which  is  the  task  of  its  historical  development,  in 
the  course  of  which  these  opposites,  even  though 
it  is  not  with  their  former  exclusiveness,  always 
do  make  their  presence  noticeable  to  some  degree. 
Its  history  is  for  that  reason  so  much  richer, 
as  its  nature  is  more  complicated  than  in  any 
other  religion ;  it  has  its  contemplative  thinkers, 
its  world-weary  mystics,  its  prophets  of  an  ideal 
future  and  its  battling  heroes  and  men  of  world- 
governing  energy — each  single  character  is  funda- 
mentally different  from  the  others,  and  yet  all  are 
Christians,  united  by  the  common  spirit  of  the 
religion  of  "  God-humanity."  overruling  all  in- 
dividual characteristics.  I  cannot  enter  into  more 
detail  of  the  history  of  Christianity  at  this  point ; 
yet  I  woulfl  show  by  the  modern  example  of  the 
classical  thinkers  and  poets  how  the  opposite  funda- 

24 


The  Essence  of  Religion 

mental  tendencies,  winding  through  the  history  of 
reh'gion,  may  be  recognized  even  in  world-views 
which  are  not  directly  influenced  by  the  Chris- 
tian church, — there,  because  they  are  grounded  in 
human  nature  itself.  I  am  thinking  of  Spinoza  and 
Goethe  on  the  one  side,  and  of  Kant  and  Schiller 
on  the  other. 

In  Spinoza,  the  Indian  and  the  Greek  pantheism 
had  a  rebirth.     For  him,  God  is  one  with  nature, 
the  all-one  being,  which  is  at  the  basis  of  all  phe- 
nomena, binding  them  all  by  the  iron  law  of  ne- 
cessity.    In  the  circle  of  law-abiding  occurrences, 
there  are  only  causes,  no  purposes ;  these  latter  are 
merely  the  poetic  addition  of  human  imagination. 
Man,  too,  in  so  far  as  he  is  fettered  in  the  slavery 
of  the  passions,  is  subject  to  the  rigid  mechanism 
of  the  laws  of  nature;  but  he  becomes  free  from 
this  miserable   condition   when    he   recognizes    the 
unreasonableness  of  his  passions  and  regards  all 
external  events  in  the  light  of  eternity,  that  is,  as 
fleeting  phenomena  in  the  moving  All  which  obeys 
the  eternal  laws.     To  give  up  one's  own  small  self 
in  thoughtful  viewing  of  the  divine  All  and  to  bow 
in  peaceful  submission  beneath  the  necessity  of  the 
whole,  that  is  Spinoza's  piety.     This  contemplative, 
selfless  composure  was   what  attracted  Goethe  to 
Spinoza;  therein  he  found  the  wholesome  medicine 
for  his  youthful,  heated  temperament.     But  Goethe 
transfigured  the  seriousness  of  Spinozistic  thinking 
through  esthetic  joy  in  nature,  of  the  ancient  Greek 

25 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

manner  of  thinking,  which  saw  the  world  filled  with 
divine  power  and  glory : 

"What  were  a  God,  who  merely  shoved  without, 
And  on  his  finger  whirled  the  world  about? 
'Tis  his  to  move  the  world  and  hold 
Himself  in  nature,  nature  himself  enfold. 
So  that  what  in  him  lives  and  moves  and  is, 
Not  his  spirit  nor  his  strength  will  miss." 

The  thought  of  an  extra-worldly  God  and  of  a 
God-forsaken  world  was  not  acceptable  to  nor  ad- 
mitted by  a  poet,  who,  in  gratitude  and  admiration, 
perceived  the  deed  and  government  of  God  in  the 
order  of  the  world,  in  the  beauty  of  nature,  and  in 
the  inspirations  of  genius  everywhere.  No  one  has 
the  right  to  declare  this,  Goethe's  way  of  thinking, 
impious ;  only  this  is  correct,  that  it  is  one-sided  and 
does  not  exhaust  the  nature  of  religion.  But  Goethe 
himself  was  aware  of  that,  and,  therefore,  the  verse 
quoted  requires  the  following  to  complement  it: 

"There  is  a  universe  within  us,  too, 
Hence,  praiseworthy  what  the  nations  do; 
The  best  that  each  one  has  and  knows, 
He  names  it  God,  his  God;   bestows 
Upon  Him,  heaven  and  earth  above, 
His  fear  and  where  he  can,  his  love." 

Here  God  is  the  name  for  that  ideal  which  forms 
the  inner  world  of  our  heart,  but  is  far  superior  to 
all  external  reality;  it  is  that  to  which,  because  we 
acknowledge  it  to  be  the  best  and  the  most  valuable 
absolutely,  we  ascribe  rulership  over  heaven  and 
earth,  the  power  to  conquer  the  world.  Therewith 
the   justification    of   the   motive   of   supermundane 

26 


The  Essence  of  Religion 

religion  and  this  basis  in  human  nature  is  conceded, 
and  the  vaHdity  of  immanent  rehgion  put  back  into 
its  proper  perspective,  which  does  not  exclude  the 
fact  that  for  Goethe  himself  tiie  preponderance  was 
with  the  latter. 

The  contrast  to  Spinoza  is  Kant,  the  philosopher 
of  freedom,  of  the  moral  ideals  and  of  the  strict 
division  of  nature  from  spirit,  world  of  the  senses 
and  moral  law,  Is  and  Ought.  According  to  him, 
the  belief  in  God  is  not  to  be  based  upon  our  experi- 
ence of  the  external  world,  but  it  is  only  demanded 
by  our  moral  reason  as  a  presupposition  for  the 
possibility  of  the  future  realization  of  the  highest 
good,  in  which  there  will  be  reconciled  the  contra- 
diction of  reason  and  the  senses,  of  virtue  and  hap- 
piness, which  are  irreconcilable  for  us ;  in  other 
words,  the  belief  in  God  serves  the  righteous  as  a 
guarantee  of  the  hope  that  virtue  will  partake  in  the 
future  of  that  happiness  which  it  deserves, — a  view 
against  which,  from  the  presuppositions  of  a  strict 
Kantian  idealism,  some  not  unjustifiable  objec- 
tions might  be  urged.  Hence  Schiller,  Kant's  great 
disciple,  took  what  was  permanently  valuable  out  of 
his  idealism,  without  adhering  to  the  limitations 
which  were  present  in  Kant. 

According  to  Schiller,  the  belief  in  God  is  not 
merely  a  demand,  an  assumption  in  the  interest  of 
men  who  sought  compensation  for  virtue  through 
happiness ;  rather,  he  warns  against  the  "  madness  " 
which  expects  reward  for  the  good  by  external 
happiness  at  any  time;  and  yet  there  remains  for 

27 


P^ 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

him  the  behef  in  the  ideal  of  the  holy  will,  which 
highest  thought  weaves  above  time  and  space;  this 
belief  remains  for  him  an  immediate  certainty,  which 
the  heart  tells  and  without  which,  man  would  be 
robbed  of  all  value.  The  ideal,  however,  should  not 
only  remain  a  supermundane  (abstract)  quantity, 
but  it  should  be  taken  up  in  our  will  and  become  the 
inner  power  and  joyousness  of  good  volition  and 
action.  In  this,  Schiller  finds  the  peculiarity  of 
Christianity,  in  that  it  places  free  inclination  in  the 
stead  of  law;  therein  would  be  represented  the 
"  humanization  of  the  sacred."  Taking  Kant's 
ideal  as  a  starting-point,  Schiller  brought  it  down 
to  actual  human  living,  just  as  Goethe,  starting 
from  reality,  elevated  himself  to  the  ideal. 

These  are  the  two  tendencies  which  wind  through 
the  history  of  religion  and  find  oneness  of  princi- 
ple in  Christianity, — which  does  not  prevent  some 
from  placing  the  emphasis  on  the  one  side  and  others 
on  the  other,  each  according  to  his  own  peculiar 
nature.  Instead  of  quarreling  with  one  another 
about  it,  we  ought  rather  to  rejoice  in  the  variety 
of  religious  characters  as  the  living  proof  of  the 
abundance  of  truth,  of  spirit,  and  of  power,  which 
is  bound  up  with  religion  in  general,  and  in  Chris- 
tianity in  particular.  Whoever  would  understand 
the  history  of  religion  aright,  let  him  hold  fast  to 
the  beautiful  words  of  Goethe,  "  The  recognition 
of  God,  wherever  and  however  He  reveals  Himself, 
that  is  real  blessedness  on  earth." 

28 


II 

RELIGION    AND    ETHICS 

In  the  previous  lecture,  I  have  attempted  to 
describe  the  essence  of  religion,  without  entering 
into  that  question  which  still  plays  so  prominent  a 
role  in  the  text-books:  Is  religion  a  thing  of  the 
emotions  or  of  the  reason  or  of  the  will?  In  fact, 
that  ought  not  to  be  a  question  any  longer,  since  all 
psychologists  are  agreed  that  these  three  psychical 
functions  or  conditions  cannot  be  so  separated  from 
one  another  that  now  one  and  now  another  alone  is 
present ;  logically,  we  may  differentiate  them,  but  in 
the  real  life  of  every  day,  they  are  never  differ- 
entiated, but  always  in  each  moment  of  full  con- 
sciousness, they  are  so  inseparably  connected  and  so 
reciprocally  active,  that  one  without  the  other  can 
not  be  understood.  That  a  century  ago,  in  its  pas- 
sionate reaction  against  the  shallow  perspicuity  and 
the  frosty  moralizing  of  the  age  of  Enlightenment, 
Romanticism  elevated  the  feelings  as  the  one-and-all 
of  religion  (as  of  art) — historically,  we  can  under- 
stand ;  but  that  does  not  permit  us  to  withhold  the 
judgment  that  it  was  a  fatal  error.  For  to  it,  must 
be  ascribed  the  blame  for  the  great  and  widespread 

29 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

confusion,   thoughtlessness  and   anarchy   in   things 
rehgious,  from  which  we  are  suffering  to-day. 

Emotion,  everywhere,  is  nothing  but  the  coming 
into  consciousness  of  a  stimulation  of  the  will 
through  an  idea;  accordingly  as  it  is  positive  or 
negative,  attractive  or  repulsive  in  its  effect  on  an  't 
instinct,  we  become  conscious  of  it  as  a  feeling  of 
an  agreeable  or  disagreeable  nature.  If  there  can 
be  no  feeling  in  general  without  the  stimulus  of 
an  idea,  then  it  is  natural  that  there  can  be  no 
religious  feeling  without  some  kind  of  an  idea  of 
a  corresponding  object,  some  superhuman  power, 
upon  which  man  feels  that  he  is  dependent  and 
to  which  he  feels  himself  bound.  Some  idea  of 
the  divine  is  therefore  the  presupposition  of  the 
origin  of  a  religious  feeling.  However,  the  mere 
idea  of  God  is  not  religion,  for  religion  is  a  matter 
of  the  whole  man.  One  may  have  a  mass  of  ideas 
about  God,  perhaps  carry  a  whole  system  of  church 
doctrines  about  in  his  head,  and  yet  be  an  entirely 
irreligious  person,  and  remain  so  as  long  as  those 
ideas  are  merely  matter  of  knowledge  and  find  no 
echo  in  the  will,  so  long  as  they  do  not  release 
religious  feelings.  The  presence  of  religious  feel- 
ings is  an  evidence  that  a  man  does  not  only  know 
about  God,  but  that  he  is  moved  by  it  as  to  his  will 
and  follows  its  decisions ;  that  he  has  God  not  only 
in  his  head,  but  also  in  his  heart.  "  Would  you 
have  him  as  your  own,  then  feel  the  God  you 
think."     The  feelings  released  by  the  ideas  do  not 

30 


Religion  and  Ethics 

remain  for  themselves  as  conditions  of  rest,  but 
they  become  impelHng  powers  for  the  will  which 
sets  the  will  in  motion  in  the  direction  indicated  by 
the  content  of  the  ideas.  Directly  the  will  reacts 
inwardly  upon  the  God-idea,  in  that  it  enters  into 
a  corresponding  relation  with  God,  affirms  and 
acknowledges  its  attachment  to  the  divine  will,  and 
makes  its  decisions  accordingly,  surrendering  itself 
to  Him  In  obedience.  This  movement  of  the  will, 
at  first  inward,  externalizes  itself  in  corresponding 
action  in  "  the  service  of  God."  This  takes  place 
in  two-fold  fashion :  partly  in  unmediated  relation 
to  God  as  service  of  God  in  the  narrower  (cultish) 
sense,  partly  in  mediate  relation,  through  the  moral 
action  among  men  and  things  of  the  world  which 
correspond  with  the  divine  will. 

Naturally  there  can  be  no  such  thing  as  a  direct 
action  upon  God  in  the  strict  sense  of  the  word, 
hence  the  activities  of  the  cult-service  of  God  have 
but  a  symbolic  meaning;  they  are  the  symbolic- 
representative  expression  of  the  inner  tendency  of 
the  will  to  God,  the  immediate  expression  of  the 
pious  feelings  and,  at  the  same  time,  the  means  of 
stimulating,  energizing  and  imparting  those  feel- 
ings. The  real  service  of  _God  is  actually  only 
moral  activity  in  the  world,  in  so  far  as  the  pious 
soul  regards  it  as  the  fulfillment  of  tasks  set  him  by 
God,  as  a  service  for  the  cause  of  God,  for  the 
realization  of  the  divine  purposes  in  the  world. 
lYet  it  must  be  remembered  that  this  differentiation 

31 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

of  ours  between  actual  and  inactual,  real  and  sym- 
bolic-cultisli  service  of  God,  is  not  yet  clear  to  the 
naive  religious  consciousness;  the  latter  does  not 
think  of  mere  symbolism  in  the  performances  of 
the  cult-activities,  but  thinks  that  he  is  performing 
a  direct  service  to  his  god  thereby,  that  it  is  an 
agreeable  and  desired  deed,  whereby  the  favor  of  the 
god  is  won  and  a  return  deed  is  bought.  Since  this 
direct  cult-act  for  the  god  disregards  the  moral  pur- 
poses of  society,  and  does  not  come  into  contact 
with  them,  or  if  it  does,  it  is  a  mere  matter  of 
chance  and  of  secondary  import,  it  is  well  possible 
and  happens  frequently  that  a  conflict  arises  be- 
tween the  cult-service  of  God  and  the  moral  pur- 
poses of  society.  Then,  instead  of  being  the  most 
powerful  motive  of  morality,  religion  becomes  its 
gravest  obstacle. 

The  ultimate  source  of  this  evil  lies  in  the  child- 
ish, senseless  mode  of  thought  of  primitive  religion, 
which,  without  further  ado,  places  the  relation  to 
God  on  a  level  with  the  relation  to  a  powerful 
man, — that  is,  ascribes  to  him  a  selfish  will,  peculiar 
needs  and  self-seeking  wishes;  whereas  the  divine 
will  is  perfectly  good,  so  that  its  object  is  absolutely 
one  with  the  general  highest  good.  The  same 
lowering  of  God  to  the  finite  is  also  the  source  of 
the  conflicts  between  religious  ideas  and  profane 
knowdedge ;  for  if  God  is  conceived  as  an  individual 
Being,  acting  alongside  of  others,  differing  from 
other  finite  beings  merely  in  degree  of  power,  then 


Religion  and  Ethics 

peculiar  finite  activities  will  be  ascribed  to  Him 
which  collide  with  those  of  other  finite  causes,  hence 
breaking  through  and  nullifying  the  causal  con- 
nection of  the  whole  of  the  world-order ;  whereas,  in 
reality,  God  is  the  infinite  power  and  wisdom :  He  is 
the  eternal  basis  of  the  reasonable  order  of  the 
world  and  the  guarantee  of  the  knowledge  of  it  for 
our  thinking. 

Therewith,  we  have  arrived  at  the  important 
question :  What  is  the  relation  of  religion  to  ethics 
and  to  science?  This  question  is  of  utmost  impor- 
tance for  a  proper  judgment  of  present  and  past 
religion.  Therefore,  we  will  enter  more  deeply 
into  it. 

Religion  and  ethics — what  a  much  vexed  sub- 
ject of  our  day!  Many  there  are  who  think  that 
their  origins  were  distinct,  that  they  differed  totally ; 
that  religion  originally  had  no  connection  with 
morals,  but  that  the  latter  had  been  something 
extraneous  added  subsequently  as  an  accidental  to 
the  former;  that,  therefore,  they  do  not  belong  es- 
sentially together,  that  they  may  well  be  able  to  go 
farther  apart  than  they  are  now,  and  that  such  a 
separation  would  better  serve  the  interest  of  ethics. 
On  the  other  hand,  there  are  those  who  are  con- 
vinced that  the  separation  not  only  contradicts  all 
past  history  but  also  their  own  nature,  and  that  it 
would  be  productive  of  the  gravest  disaster  to  both. 
At  the  outset,  let  us  test  these  two  opposing  opinions 
in  the  light  of  the  facts  offered  by  history. 

33 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

On  one  point  there  can  be  not  the  shghtest  doubt ; 
the  notion  that  rehgion  and  ethics  were  originally 
entirely  separate  and  distinct  is  false, — an  almost 
inconceivable  error.  Among  the  serious  research- 
students  working  over  ancient  periods,  it  is  gen- 
erally conceded,  to-day,  that  the  moral  conduct  of 
men  had  its  beginning  in  the  religious  faith  and 
religious  rites.  The  feeling  of  allegiance  to  the  one 
common  deity  of  a  certain  social  group  was  the 
original  tie  of  all  moral  solidarity  and  community, 
that  was  the  source  of  social  order  and  morality  of 
mankind.  The  sanctity  of  the  family  emanated 
from  the  cult-service.  The  hearth  was  the  home- 
altar,  the  house-father  was  the  priest,  who  acted  for 
the  family  in  performing  the  service  to  the  house- 
hold-deity. In  the  tribe  that  was  the  position  of 
the  oldest  or  the  tribe-chief;  with  a  nation  it  was 
the  national  king.  They  were  the  representatives 
of  the  divinely-founded  unity  of  the  tribe  or  nation, 
the  mouthpieces  of  the  divine  will,  and  the  mediators 
between  the  god  and  men ;  hence,  even  Homer  calls 
them  "  Zeus-born."  So,  too,  all  legal  procedure  in 
the  world  of  the  ancient  peoples  was  sanctified  by 
religion ;  everywhere  the  written  and  the  unwritten 
law  was  traced  back  to  divine  establishment  an< 
revelation. 

Not  only  the  law  of  Moses,  but  among  the 
Indians,  the  law  of  Manu,  among  the  Persians,  that 
of  Zarathustra,  among  the  Greeks,  that  of  Lycurgus, 
among  the  Romans,  that  of  Numa — all  of  them 

34 


Religion  and  Ethics 

were  looked  upon  as  divinely  given  and  sanctioned 
by  divine  oracles.  Here,  as  everywhere,  the  high- 
est source  of  human  authority  and  order  is  deity 
itself.  Because  the  god  founded  and  established 
all  rights  and  laws,  it  was  logically  concluded  that 
the  god  was  the  protector  of  all  rights  and  the 
avenger  of  all  injustice.  From  of  old,  this  thought 
has  been  effective  as  a  mighty  educational  power 
among  men.  The  human  judge  performs  his  offices 
as  a  commission  of  the  god  judging,  and  where  his 
power  proves  to  be  too  weak  it  is  supplemented  by 
the  divine  Nemesis  and  Dike  and  the  Erinnyes,  the 
fearful  daughters  of  Night.  All  turning-points  in 
the  life  of  the  individual  and  the  political  commu- 
nity were  also  sanctified  by  religion  in  the  beginning. 
Thus,  at  the  birth  of  a  child,  it  was  placed  under 
the  protecting  care  of  the  household-deity  with 
solemn  ceremony;  the  attainment  of  majority,  the 
marriage,  the  entombment, — they  are  celebrated  by 
festal  rites  established  by  the  god.  'And  then,  the 
best  and  most  precious  things  which  the  awakening 
spirit  of  man  brought  forth,  his  arts,  were  the 
children  of  religion;  they  erected  the  wondrous 
structure  of  the  temple  for  the  gods,  they  decorated 
its  halls  with  noble  statuary  and  precious  dedicatory 
gifts.  The  lively  antiphonal  songs  and  circle- 
dancing  at  the  vintage-feast  of  Dionysus  gave  rise 
to  the  classic  drama,  the  overwhelming  tragedies, 
and  the  witty  comedies  of  the  Greeks. 
But  no  less  the  earnest  business  and  events  in  the 
35 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

political  life  of  the  people,  the  council  and  judicial 
meetings,  the  departure  for  war,  the  founding  of 
colonies — all  of  this,  too,  eventuated  according  to 
the  oracular  speech  of  the  god  and  in  trust  of  his 
protection.  The  returning  army,  victorious,  dedi- 
cated its  trophies  as  a  tribute  of  thanks  to  the  god. 
So  the  whole  life  of  the  individual  and  of  the  nation 
was  encompassed  and  permeated,  ordered  and  regu- 
lated, elevated  and  sanctified  by  their  religion.  It 
was  not,  as  it  is  with  us,  a  thing  apart  for  itself;  it 
was  the  soul  of  the  social  life,  the  bond  of  political 
community,  the  impulse  to  self-sacrificing  patriot- 
ism, the  education  to  a  higher  culture,  the  sanctifi- 
cation  and  the  crown  of  life.  There  was  not  as 
yet  any  distinction  between  church  and  state;  the 
temporal  and  the  religious  life  of  the  people  was  an 
undivided  unity,  regulated  by  the  same  laws  and 
serving  the  same  purposes :  the  honor  of  the  national 
god  who  was  wrapped  up  in  the  perpetuation  and 
best  welfare  of  the  whole  nation. 

Naturally,  it  could  not  remain  so  long.  It  is  a 
peculiarity  of  religion  that  it  keeps  a  tight  hold  on 
traditional  ideas  and  ceremonies  with  great  tenacity. 
That  is  its  strength,  for  thereby,  the  fleeting  and 
changeable  life  of  the  children  of  men  gains  hold, 
permanence  and  firmness.  But  that  which  Is  in 
truth  its  strength  is  at  the  same  time  its  weakness. 
For  the  forward  and  upward  striving  human  spirit 
cannot  possibly  remain  fettered  by  the  leading- 
strings  of  traditions  and  commandments.     iWhen 

36 


Religion  and  Ethics 

man  opens  his  eyes  and  looks  about  him  in  the 
world,  he  finds  that  there  are  many  things  quite 
different  from  what  he  had  been  led  to  think  by 
the  pious  traditions  of  his  fathers  handed  down  from 
generation  to  generation.  The  work  of  culture  in 
society  becomes  more  complicated,  the  activity  of 
the  individual  becomes  more  independent  and  more 
intensive,  and  so  both  break  loose  from  the  fixed 
traditional  forms  of  religion.  No  longer  is  the 
custom  and  the  faith  of  the  parent,  but  man's  own 
opinion  and  his  wish  as  an  individual,  is  declared 
to  be  the  measure  of  all  things.  At  first,  this  is 
rather  a  loss  than  a  gain,  but  it  is  a  necessary  step 
on  the  pathway  of  the  evolution  of  the  human  spirit, 
as  in  the  period  of  the  Sophists,  and  again  in  the 
modern  age  of  Enlightenment  (even  as  early  as  the 
Renaissance).  .With  this  release  of  the  thinking 
and  the  willing  of  the  individual  from  the  traditional 
faith  and  custom,  religion  and  morality  enter  into 
that  opposition  to  one  another  which  leads  to  strug- 
gle. We  cannot  take  up  each  of  the  phases  of  that 
combat  in  detail ;  we  are  still  in  the  midst  of  the 
fray  and  there  is  no  sign  to  tell  us  when  it  will 
end. 

Some  think  that  the  combat  could  soon  be  brought 
to  a  close  if  every  one  would  only  recognize  that 
the  two  had  nothing  to  do  with  one  another;  on 
Sundays,  religion  might  have  its  say  for  a  brief 
hour,  but  beyond  that  ethics  and  science  go  their 
own  way,  heedless  of  religion.    Yes,  there  are  some 

37 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

who  go  further  and  maintain  that  morals  will  not 
improve  until  ethics  has  freed  itself  completely  from 
religion,  for  the  influence  exerted  by  religion  upon 
morals  is  bad.  Religion,  so  these  men  say,  makes 
man  unfree,  in  that  it  subordinates  man  to  the 
strange  will  of  God,  robs  man  of  his  own  free  self- 
determination  upon  which  all  moral  dignity  rests. 
By  the  employment  of  the  motives  of  fear  and  hope 
in  the  insistence  upon  its  commandments,  religion 
degrades  morals  and  makes  them  unclean,  for 
action,  which  has  regard  for  reward  and  punish- 
ment, is  a  pseudo-morality. 

Furthermore,  instead  of  urging  man  to  depend 
upon  his  own  moral  power  and  effort,  religion  re- 
fers him  to  divine  grace  and  providence,  which  will 
do  all  things  for  him ;  religion  even  denies  freedom 
to  man  and  his  power  for  good,  and  thus  paralyzes 
all  his  energies,  making  him  discouraged  and  in- 
dolent, cowardly  and  unfit  for  the  struggle  for  exist- 
ence. The  more  so  since  religion  ever  points  to 
a  realm  beyond,  and  represents  this  earthly  exist- 
ence as  vain  and  valueless,  as  a  valley  of  sorrows 
which  is  not  worth  the  concern  of  men ;  thus,  re- 
ligion embitters  earthly  toil  for  men  and  turns 
them  against  their  immediate  tasks  and  duties,  mak- 
ing them  unfit  inhabitants  of  the  earth.  Finally, 
as  a  church,  religion  has  fixed  its  ordinances,  in 
which  it  has  set  down  what  shall  be  true  and  good 
forever;  therewith  man  is  prevented  from  striving 
for  knowledge  of  the  truth,  from  the  exercise  of 

38 


Religion  and  Ethics 

independent  testing  and  judging,  from  the  attain- 
ment of  a  firm  personal  conviction, — killing  man's 
sense  of  truth,  making  him  either  deceitful  or 
ignorant;  and  while  one  church  reviles  the  other, 
religion  foments  the  worst  of  discord,  all  misfor- 
tunes and  evils  which  the  nations  are  suffering. 

What  shall  we  say  to  all  of  this?  First  of  all,  I 
think  we  will  take  heed  not  to  answer  the  uncalled- 
for  exaggerations  of  our  opponents  with  like  ex- 
aggeration. We  do  not  wish  to  maintain  that, 
among  those  estranged  from  religion  or  who  think 
they  are  estranged  from  it,  there  are  not  moral 
men;  that  would  be  a  contradiction  of  experience. 
It  cannot  be  denied  that  even  among  those  who  are 
not  associated  with  any  positive  religion  there  are 
moral  characters  deserving  of  high  respect, — men 
distinguished  by  their  conscientiousness,  their  in- 
dustry in  their  calling,  and  their  eagerness  for  the 
public  welfare.  But  whence  have  these  men  ob- 
tained their  moral  principles  and  their  moral  atti- 
tude? Are  they  not  the  fruits  of  an  education 
which  from  youth  impressed  the  good  as  the  abso- 
lutely valuable  upon  them  and  caused  them  to  love 
it,  wakened  their  sense  of  duty  and  molded  their 
consciences  ?  This  education  was  given  to  them  by 
the  moral  community  in  which  they  grew  up,  and 
the  moral  spirit  which  pervaded  it  rested  upon  its 
religious  world-view.  In  the  consciousness  of  single 
individuals,  this  close  interweaving  of  the  moral 
and  religious  convictions  may  be  somev^b^t  dark- 

39 


:IV 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

ened,  nevertheless  it  remains  an  indisputable  fact 
tliat  the  common  moral  consciousness  of  human 
society  rests  on  its  religious  beliefs,  standing  and 
falling  with  them.  There  is  no  disputing  the  les- 
sons taught  by  the  experience  of  history ;  in  ages  oi 
religious  decadence,  of  faithlessness  and  skepticism,  |  ^  V 
the  moral  consciousness  of  a  nation  usually  sinks 
and  degenerates  into  confusion  and  disintegration. 
How  could  it  be  otherwise?  Where  else  could  the 
moral  consciousness  acquire  the  faith  in  the  abso- 
luteness of  duty  and  the  sanctity  of  the  moral  ideal, 
if  not  from  the  faith  in  an  absolute  eternal  will  of 
the  good  superior  to  the  arbitrariness  of  men,  that 
is  from  God?  Only  in  a  consciousness  of  the 
allegiance  to  the  divine  will,  which  is  the  common 
cause  as  it  is  the  common  law  and  goal  of  the 
lives  of  men,  can  men  feel  themselves  bound  one  to 
the  other  by  the  irrefragible  moral  bond  of  mutual 
obligation.  Therefore,  everywhere  it  is  the  relig- 
ious belief  of  peoples  in  w-hich  the  stoutest  roots  of 
the  consciousness  of  duty  are  imbedded;  the  relig- 
ious belief  supports  the  consciousness  of  the  indi- 
vidual and  the  community  and  keeps  it  alive,  and 
it  gives  perpetual  guarantee  of  the  subordination  of 
the  individual  members  to  the  order  of  the  whole 
and  their  willing  surrender  to  the  purpose  of  the 
whole. 

How  about  those  charges  brought  against  relig- 
ion in  regard  to  its  influence  upon  morals?  As  a 
preliminary^  it  must  be  said  that  the  essential  differ- 

40 


Religion  and  Ethics 

ence  between  religion  itself  and  its  positive  church 
forms,  doctrines,  ordinances  and  customs,  is  over- 
looked. We  ought  to  be  permitted  to  take  it  for 
granted  that  any  one  who  talks  about  these  mat- 
ters knows  that  these  things  are  not  religion,  but 
merely  its  imperfect  presentation-forms,  coverings 
and  shells  (Kant,  "vehicles"),  which  are  con- 
ditioned by  time  and  changeable  in  time.  And  no 
less  ought  we  to  presuppose  a  knowledge  of  the 
fact  concerning  the  law  of  evolution,  under  which 
we  are  accustomed  to  consider  all  physical  and  his- 
torical life  to-day,  namely,  that  it  holds  good  in 
religion  as  well  as  in  morals.  Both  of  them  were 
given  at  the  beginning  not  as  completed  entities,  but 
were  compelled  to  work  their  way  out  of  crude 
beginnings  gradually,  to  rise  from  attachment  to 
the  senses  to  freedom  of  the  spirit.  Through 
arduous  effort  and  education  of  generation  after 
generation,  reason  must  gradually  be  brought  to 
consciousness  in  men  and  finally  to  mastery  over 
them.  In  this  educative  process  to  reasonableness 
the  race,  as  well  as  the  individual,  must  pass  through 
certain  different  stages,  and  every  educator  knows 
that  the  same  demands  cannot  be  made  in  the  lower 
stages  as  in  the  higher.  In  the  child-stage  of 
development,  the  good  cannot  be  known  by  a  rea- 
soned judgment,  and  cannot  be  desired  nor  done 
through  a  voluntary  self-determination,  but  to  each 
one  there  comes  an  external  command  which  de- 
mands the  subordination  of  the  personal  will  under 

41 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

the  commanding  will.  It  is  perfectly  natural  that 
this  stage  of  development  corresponds  to  the  theo- 
cratic form  of  religion  and  morals,  that  is,  the 
idea  that  the  good  is  a  command  to  men  from  a 
strange  and  external  will  of  God,  the  supermundane 
Lord.  In  this  form  of  religious  consciousness,  man 
does  bear  a  relation  to  God  which  is  as  unfree 
as  that  of  a  slave  to  his  master,  or  of  a  minor  child 
to  its  tutor.  Just  as  this  form  of  consciousness 
in  the  lower  stage  of  development  is  inevitable, 
so  little  should  it  remain  permanent.  When  the 
time  was  ripe,  the  discipline  of  the  law  was  re- 
moved and  mankind  called  to  freedom  as  the  full- 
grown  sons  of  God.  That  was  the  new  conscious- 
ness of  God's  children  brought  by  Christianity. 
Paul  says : 

"  Stand  fast  therefore  in  the  liberty  wherewith 
Christ  hath  made  us  free,  and  be  not  entangled 
again  with  the  yoke  of  bondage."     (Gal.  v,  i). 

But  this  freedom  of  Christians  is  not  equivalent 
to  license;  it  stands  just  as  far  above  the  heathen 
lack  of  law  and  unbridled  freedom  as  it  does  above 
Jewish  legality  and  unfreedom.  It  is  the  freedom 
in  God,  in  allegiance  of  conscience  to  Him,  which 
makes  free  from  the  compulsion  of  the  world  and 
does  at  the  same  time  unite  man  to  men  in  love ;  as 
Luther  says  of  "  the  freedom  of  Christian  men," 
that  they  are  master  of  all  things  in  faith  and  ser- 
vant of  all  in  love.  That,  too,  is  the  fundamental 
thought   of   the   classical    philosophy   of   idealism, 

42 


Religion  and  Ethics 


which   Schiller  has   expressed   in   the   well-known 
verse : 

Absorb  the  divine  into  your  will, 
From  its  world-throne,  'twill  descend, 
Of  itself  the  yawning  chasm  will  fill 
The  fearful  object  take  an  end. 
The  strong  links  of  the  law  can  bind 
The  slavish  sense  disdaining  them,  alone, 
With  the  opposition  of  men  vanishes 
Too,  the  majesty  of  God. 

Therewith  tlie  reproach  of  impure  motives  at- 
tributed to  religious  morals  is  also  removed.  In 
the  condition  of  immaturity,  when  the  good  still 
appears  as  the  external  command  of  a  strange  will, 
the  motives  of  fear  and  hope  are  naturally  indis- 
pensable. But  in  the  measure  with  which  man 
grows  out  of  the  condition  of  immaturity  and  lifts 
himself  to  the  state  of  childship  of  God,  those 
motives  lose  their  meaning ;  in  their  stead  enters  the 
joyous  surrender  to  the  good  as  God's  purpose, 
which  is  at  the  same  time  our  own  reasonable  pur- 
pose of  life,  and  there  enters  the  reasonable  service 
of  God,  which  is,  at  the  same  time,  the  service  of 
men  in  unselfish  love. 

Concerning  the  further  effects  of  the  belief  in 
providence,  does  it  actually  make  men  indolent? 
Experience  hardly  confirms  it  as  a  fact.  The  truly 
pious  belief  in  providence  was  ever  a  prop  for 
morally  striving  and  struggling  men,  and  a  prop 
with  which  it  would  be  difficult  to  dispense.  How 
could  man  endure  in  the  struggle  and  effort  for  the 
good  if  he  did  not  believe  that  his  goal  was  attain- 

43 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

able,  if  he  dared  not  hope  for  the  future  victory 
of  the  right  over  wrong,  of  love  over  selfishness, 
of  truth  over  falsehood?  But  how  can  man  cher- 
ish such  hopes  if  he  builds  solely  upon  his  own 
weak  powers,  and  regards  only  external  experience, 
in  which  so  often  evil  triumphs  over  good?  When 
man  believes  in  God  as  the  Lord  of  the  world  and 
the  director  of  the  world's  course,  then  he  knows 
of  a  surety  that  all  things  in  the  world  must  serve 
the  purposes  of  God  and  must  cooperate  toward  the 
victory  of  the  good.  For  the  truly  pious,  the  grace 
of  God  is  anything  but  a  pillow  of  idleness  for 
moral  sloth.  Consider  the  great  heroes  of  the  his- 
tory of  religion :  a  Paul,  a  Luther,  a  Calvin,  a 
Knox — were  they  idle  men  or  were  they  not  rather 
most  powerful  heroes  of  active  work?  It  was  not 
so  despite  the  fact,  but  because  they  felt  themselves 
to  be  instruments  of  divine  grace,  driven  and  borne 
by  the  divine  spirit,  whose  power  they  knew  to  be 
strong  in  their  weakness. 

The  hope  of  a  world  beyond,  the  world-weariness, 
the  longing  for  heaven, — must  they  not  paralyze 
all  moral  activity?  Well,  yes,  that  did  appear  at 
times,  for  example,  at  the  close  of  the  ancient  world 
and  again  in  the  medieval  world  like  some  epidemic 
of  disease,  and  it  is  to  be  judged  in  the  same  fashion 
as  that  sentimental  world-woe  which  attacks  some 
people  in  their  youthful  stages  of  development. 
But  such  conditions  are  diseases  of  youth,  which 
have  their  time  and  then  pass  off.     So,  too,   the 

44 


Religion  and  Ethics 

Christian  believers  did  not  rest  at  the  stage  of 
world-denial,  but  conquered  it  by  the  inner  force  of 
their  faith.  ,We  pray :  "  Thy  kingdom  come ;  Thy 
will  be  done  on  earth,  as  it  is  in  Heaven."  We  hope 
for  its  coming  upon  this,  our  earth;  we  hope  that 
this  scene  of  our  sorrows  and  joys,  our  labor  and 
toil,  will  become  consecrated  to  a  realm  of  the  good, 
where  right  will  become  might,  and  peace  embrace 
justice. 

Naturally,  even  with  this  hope,  there  remains  an 
excess  of  the  other-worldliness  of  the  ideal,  which 
can  never  be  absorbed  completely  by  the  world  of 
our  experience  here  below.  That  lies  in  the  nature 
of  the  matter,  in  the  nature  of  the  ideal,  and  in  the 
need  of  the  human  spirit.  We  cannot  hide  from 
our  sight  the  fact  that  despite  all  our  labor  and  our 
striving  the  ultimate  goal  is  something  that  we  can 
never  reach.  "  So  long  as  man  strives,  he  errs." 
The  ideal  constantly  recedes  before  him,  vanishing 
ever  into  higher  and  greater  distance.  And  yet 
there  is  a  sanctuary  of  refuge,  where  we  can  par- 
take of  the  eternal  as  something  present, — it  is  pious 
devotion,  wlicther  it  be  in  the  quiet  of  our  own 
chamber  or  in  the  common  service  with  the  whole 
congregation.  There  we  rise  somewhat  to  tlie  view- 
point of  God  and  look  upon  things  of  time  under 
the  aspect  of  eternity.  There  that  which  will  be, 
now  is ;  the  chasm  between  what  is  and  what  ought 
to  be,  which  never  can  or  should  disappear  for  those 
striving  after  jnorality,  is  bridged  by  the  feeling  of 

45 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

eternity  in  worsliip.  With  the  eye  of  God,  we  look 
upon  hfe  which  is  ever  becoming  and  striving  and 
ever  imperfect,  and  we  see  its  great  gaps  filled  and 
see  its  battles  ended,  we  see  the  ideal  as  an  inner 
vision  and  feel  it  as  a  living  presence.  In  such  wise, 
religion  is  not  only  the  firm  root  of  the  power  of  the 
moral,  but  also  its  crown  and  its  completion;  the 
myriad  bits  of  earth  it  gathers  up  into  a  complete 
entity;  it  lifts  us  out  of  tlie  sorrows  and  the  strug- 
gles of  time  to  eternity. 


45 


Ill 


RELIGION  AND   SCIENCE 


Vexed  as  is  the  problem  of  the  relation  of  ethics 
to  religion  of  which  we  spoke  in  the  last  lecture 
more  so  is  the  problem  of  the  relation  of  religion 
to  science.  In  order  to  have  a  clear  idea  wherein 
the  cause  of  the  various  conflicts  between  religion 
and  science  lies,  and  whether  a  solution  may  be 
hoped  for,  we  must  first  see  how  that  originates 
which  in  religion  fonns  the  teachable  matter  of 
tradition,  the  content  of  the  ideas  of  faith.  At  the 
outset,  religion,  as  the  psychical  determination  of 
life  of  the  whole  man,  must  be  differentiated  from 
the  doctrines  of  religion  as  content  of  knowledge. 
That  the  latter  does  form  a  part  of  religion  is  a  con- 
clusion which  follows  from  what  was  said  in  the 
last  lecture  concerning  the  necessary  coincidence  of 
ideas  with  feelings  and  activities  of  the  will  in  re- 
ligion ;  for  the  very  reason  that  the  religious  idea  is 
an  essential  moment,  but  only  one  moment,  in  the 
whole  of  the  religious  life  of  the  soul,  there  has 
also  been  said  that  the  religious  idea  and  doctrine 
must  not  be  substituted  for  religion  itself.  Re- 
ligious ideas  may  be  subjected  to  the  most  thorough- 

47 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

goinf^  changes,  and  yet  religion  may  remain  essen- 
tially the  fundamental  of  the  soul.  From  which,  it 
follows,  that  conflicts  between  profane  knowledge 
and  the  traditional  religious  ideas  raise  no  question 
of  the  right  of  religion  itself,  but  they  are  merely 
indications  that  the  former  mode  of  thought  is  no 
longer  the  adequate  form  for  the  religious  life  and 
therefore  stands  in  need  of  more  or  less  emendation 
or  renovation. 

Science  forms  the  things  it  knows  by  means  of 
the  thinking  of  reason ;  the  more  objective  and 
sober  the  grasp  of  a  subject  by  the  thinker,  the  less 
play  he  grants  to  his  subjective  prejudices,  ten- 
dencies and  moods,  the  more  nearly  he  wnll  ap- 
proach to  the  truth.  In  religion,  however,  at  first 
not  at  all,  and  later  merely  in  part  and  with  condi- 
tions, does  reason  shape  the  doctrine;  but,  from 
the  beginning,  it  is  the  poetic  fancy  in  which  the 
elements  of  a  doctrine,  the  religious  myths,  legends 
and  sayings,  have  their  origin. 

This  difference  in  origins  is  naturally  the  source 
of  a  very  great  difference  between  the  doctrines  of 
religion  and  science.  Religious  fantasy  never  makes 
its  poetry  voluntarily,  as  is  the  case  with  the  poet, 
who  does  his  work  with  conscious  art.  The  origi- 
nal legends  are  rather  the  products  of  the  un- 
conscious poetic  activity  of  the  popular  spirit;  they 
arise  from  the  conflux  of  the  pictures  present  in  the 
souls  of  the  many;  one  cannot  say  where  or  how. 
Neither  does  the  religious  fantasy  draw  its  poetry 

48 


Religion  and  Science 

from  nowhere,  but  rather  attaches  it  to  actual  ex- 
periences, to  phenomena  of  nature  and  the  events 
of  history,  to  such  experiences  as  released  similar 
religious  feelings  in  the  souls  of  the  many.  Exam- 
ples ?  Above  all,  there  is  that  universal  poem  of  the 
fantasy,  which  is  still  found  in  our  day  wherever 
there  are  children  or  primitive  peoples,  that  ascrib- 
ing of  a  soul  to  all  the  things  of  nature  which  we 
usually  term  "  animism."  Of  itself,  animism  is  not 
religion,  but  is  its  foundation ;  one  might  call  it  the 
most  elementary  popular  metaphysics.  Naturally, 
among  the  phenomena  of  nature,  those  must  have 
been  the  most  impressive  in  every  age  which  were 
of  most  incisive  importance  for  the  preserv-ation  of 
life,  such  as  the  dying  of  the  nature  world  in  the 
autumn  and  its  reawakening  in  the  spring.  Since 
fantasy  saw  living  souls,  spirits  and  gods  every- 
where present  in  nature,  this  death  and  resurrection 
of  nature  must  have  been  the  fate  of  the  deities 
whose  souls  dwelt  therein. 

But  it  is  the  way  of  the  poetizing  fantasy  that  an 
event  which  is  constantly  occurring  or  ever-recur- 
ring, is  summed  up  in  one  story  of  the  past.  Thus, 
the  primitive  myths  of  the  death  and  resurrection  of 
the  gods  of  nature  and  of  fruitfulness — Osiris, 
Adonis,  Attis,  Dionysos,  Persephone  and  the  like. — 
had  their  beginning.  Out  of  such  a  carrying-back 
of  a  continually  returning  event  in  nature  into  a 
one-time  story  of  the  past,  the  Baliylonian  myth  of 
Creation  originated,  which  is  closely  related  to  that 

49 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

of  the  Bible  as  we  shall  see  more  in  detail  later;  a 
spring  song,  in  which  the  annual  victory  of  the  sun- 
god  over  the  powers  of  Chaos  was  celebrated,  served 
the  fantasy  of  a  seer  or  priest  as  a  model  for  the 
poetic  presentation  of  the  original  emergence  of  an 
ordered  universe  out  of  the  chaos  of  the  first  begin- 
ning. It  is  likely  that  the  Flood-myth  originated 
in  such  wise  also,  the  frequently  recurring  floods  of 
Mesopotamia  being  consolidated  in  one  epic  of  a 
one-time  catastrophe  of  the  early  days  of  the  world. 
Soon  other  questions  force  themselves  upon  the  at- 
tention of  men :  Whence  comes  all  the  evil  of  the 
world?  Whence  all  the  sicknesses  and  cares  of 
human  life?  Why  must  women  bear  with  pain,  and 
men  labor  in  the  sweat  of  their  foreheads?  The 
answer  to  these  questions  reads :  The  blame  for  all 
of  this  rests  upon  the  curiosity  of  woman  and  the 
weakness  of  man — Eve  and  Adam,  Pandora  and 
Epimetheus-Prometheus. 

Out  of  these  early  sagas  of  nature  myths  and  the 
recollections  of  historic  experiences  of  primitive 
tribes,  there  arise  then  the  epics  or  songs  of  heroes, 
in  which  the  oldest  form  of  historical  tradition  is  to 
be  seen.  When  the  single  tribes  unite  into  one 
people,  their  tribal  deities  combine  into  a  national 
system  of  gods,  in  which  the  individual  gods  are 
genealogically  combined,  differentiated  according 
to  rank  and  occupation,  and  subordinated  to  one 
supreme  national  god,  whereas  the  local  gods  and 
the  gods  of  the  smaller  tribes  are  lowered  to  the 

50 


Religion  and  Science 

rank  of  demi-gods  or  human  heroes  of  the  early- 
days.  The  epic  heroes  are  the  divine  ancestors,  to 
whom  the  tribes  and  famiHes  trace  back  their  origin, 
and  whose  deeds  and  fates  partly  mirror  the  his- 
torical memories  of  the  tribes.  Here  is  where  the 
cult-myths  belong  in  which  priestly  families  trace 
back  the  history  of  their  sanctuary  to  a  divine 
establishment  and  revelation;  such  are  the  Python- 
Apollo  myth  of  Delphi,  the  Demeter-Kore  myth  of 
Eleusis,  the  Hebrew  myths  of  the  appearance  of 
God  at  Hebron,  Bethel  and  the  like.  An  important 
epoch  in  the  history  of  culture,  the  transition  from 
human  to  animal  sacrifices,  is  described  in  the  stories 
which  tell  of  non-fulfillment  by  divine  intervention, 
in  the  instances  of  Isaac  and  Iphigenia. 

Most  important,  however,  are  the  legends  which 
attach  themselves  to  the  epoch-making  personalities 
of  the  history  of  religions,  the  prophets  and  re- 
formers, the  so-called  founders  of  religions.  Be- 
cause the  words  from  them  were  looked  upon  as  the 
truth  by  the  congregation,  faith  made  of  these  men 
messengers,  mediators  and  even  incarnations  of 
the  god.  Their  biographies  are  adorned  with 
wonder-tales,  the  symbols  of  the  truth  of  direct  in- 
spiration by  revelation,  as  in  the  cases  of  Moses, 
Zarathustra,  Pythagoras,  Buddha,  Jesus.  With 
the  last-named,  the  origin  of  their  mortal  persons 
is  soon  traced  back  to  the  divine,  and  this  divine 
nature  soon  partakes  of  the  god,  without,  in  any 
way,  attempting  to  deny  the  man  of  the  earth.    For 

SI 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

popular  legend  there  lay  no  difficulty  therein  to  deify 
the  human  and  to  humanize  the  divine, — for,  had 
not  that  been  the  theme  of  all  the  epic  hero-myths 
of  previous  periods.  The  difficulty  first  became 
apparent  when  the  understanding  approached  the 
naive  myth  with  the  question :  How  is  one  to 
think  in  such  case,  could  an  actual  god  become  a 
man  or  could  an  actual  man  become  a  god? 
Christianity  has  been  busy  with  this  question  for 
more  than  half  a  millenium,  and  in  the  end  it 
has  not  been  solved  but  simply  set  down  and  fixed 
in  the  contradictory  form  of  the  dogma.  Dogma 
is  therefore  not,  as  is  so  often  thought,  the 
arbitrary  invention  of  the  theologian.  Dogma  is 
the  attempt  of  the  reflecting  understanding  to 
state  the  content  of  the  pious  legend  in  conceptual 
formula.       '-w,\Wf»^4>!*'/'; -  - 

At  all  times  the  fundamental  idea,  the  peculiar 
character  of  any  religion,  is  the  heart  of  its  central 
dogma;  the  idea  contained  is  attached  to  historical 
or  legendary  events  and  visualized  through  the  per- 
son of  the  prophetic  founder,  who  naturally  under- 
goes idealization  for  that  purpose.  Thus,  for  the 
Persians,  Zarathustra  is  the  embodiment  of  his 
religion  of  struggle  and  the  hope  of  a  future  vic- 
torious rulership  of  God  ;  for  the  Buddhists,  Gautama 
Buddha  is  the  embodiment  of  salvation  through 
knowledge,  self-abnegation  and  benevolence;  for 
the  Christian,  Jesus  is  the  embodiment  of  the 
child-of-God   idea,   salvation   from   the  world  and 

52  . 


Religion  and  Science 

reconciliation  with  God  in  faith  and  love.  To  this 
central  dogma,  usually,  there  become  attached  doc- 
trines concerning  the  beginning  and  the  end  of  the 
world,  the  materials  for  which  are  found  partly  in 
ancient  myths  and  partly  in  philosophical  specula- 
tions. Finally,  all  of  this  is  woven  with  great  art 
into  one  complete  theological  doctrinal  system 
which  describes  an  all-encompassing  picture  of  the 
world,  Here  and  Beyond,  history  (legend)  and 
metaphysics  and  morals ;  then  its  authoritative  valid- 
ity for  the  faith  of  the  church  is  fixed  and  firm  until 
a  contradiction  with  the  knowledge  of  progressing 
culture  is  recognized. 

The  opposition  to  ecclesiastical  doctrines  of  faith 
originated  with  the  natural  sciences.  In  the  six- 
teenth century,  when  Copernicus  presented  his 
teaching  that  the  earth  does  not  stand  still,  but,  with 
the  other  planets  revolves  about  the  sun,  Melanch- 
thon  regarded  this  teaching  as  gross  error,  and  de- 
manded its  suppression  by  the  superior  authorities; 
he  recognized  its  contradiction  of  the  biblical  report 
of  Creation  and  the  biblical  world-picture  with  all 
the  far-reaching  consequences  more  keenly  than  did 
the  later  theologians,  who  have  learned  to  accept 
the  Copernican-view  of  the  world  in  the  main,  but 
close  their  eyes  to  the  separate  logical  consequences. 
What  Copernicus  had  begun,  physics  and  mathe- 
matics continued  in  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth' 
centuries  by  their  habit  of  exact  logical  and  causal 

53 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

thinking,  and  thus  the  conviction  of  the  invariable- 
ness  of  eventuation  is  formed.  Spinoza  first  made 
this  thought  the  basis  of  a  philosophic  view  of  the 
world,  and  he  even  drew  the  conclusion  therefrom 
that  miracles,  in  the  actual  sense  of  supernatural 
nature-phenomena,  were  not  possible,  because  they 
would  indicate  a  cessation  of  the  order  of  the  world, 
which  is  one  with  the  eternal  and  unchangeable 
nature  of  God.  Finally,  the  nineteenth  century 
came  with  the  theory  of  evolution,  which  Lamarck 
prepared  and  Darwin  carried  out  to  its  victorious 
completion,  according  to  which  all  higher  species  of 
earthly  living  beings,  including  men,  developed 
from  certain  simple  ground-forms  through  gradual 
and  naturally-conditioned  changes.  But  what  be- 
comes of  the  Biblical  Paradise  ?  of  the  Creation  ?  of 
the  perfect  condition  of  man  at  the  beginning?  In- 
stead of  such  a  peaceful  idyll  there  is  put  a  semi- 
animal  beginning  of  our  race  with  all  the  horrors 
of  the  hard  struggle  for  existence,  with  the  slow  and 
laborious  elevation  to  human  culture;  nevertheless 
it  is  a  rise  from  the  depths  of  animal  nature  to 
spiritual  freedom,  and,  in  the  end,  that  is  a  more 
sublime  thought  than  the  church-doctrine  of  a  fall 
from  some  mythical  height  to  an  abysmal  depth  of 
depravity. 

For  the  science  of  history,  the  thought  of  evolution 
also  became  important.  In  history,  man  learned  to 
regard  more  closely  the  gradual  becoming  of  the 
higher  out  of  the  lower,  without  any  leaps  or  abrupt 

54 


Religion  and  Science 

new-beginnings;  in  the  stead  of  divine  miraculous 
deeds,  there  entered  the  natural  relation  of  the 
doings  of  individuals  under  the  conditioning  in- 
fluences of  the  social  conditions  of  the  time  and 
their  environment.  It  was  recognized  that  the 
greatest  heroes  and  innovating  spirits  were  always 
children  of  their  period  and  in  some  measure 
hemmed  by  its  limitations,  that  everything  temporal 
was  temporally  limited  and  relative.  These  princi- 
ples were  then  applied  to  biblical  history  and  led  to 
a  complete  overturning  of  traditional  views.  The 
examination  of  the  biblical  writings  after  the  criti- 
cal method  usually  applied  to  profane  writings  was 
begun  and  their  divergencies  and  partial  contradic- 
tions in  the  separate  traditions  as  well  as  in  the  total 
conception  of  Christianity  was  regarded.  Whatever 
was  human  and  conditioned  by  the  history  of  the 
time  in  the  utterances  and  the  teachings  of  the  bibli- 
cal authors,  was  in  all  places  so  clear,  that  the  faith 
in  the  infallibility  and  direct  divine  inspiration  of 
the  words  of  the  Bible  could  no  longer  be  main- 
tained. Finally,  the  view  widened  from  the  biblical 
field  to  that  of  the  whole  history  of  religion.  Here 
the  most  remarkable  parallels  between  biblical  and 
heathen  legends  soon  became  apparent, — parallels 
which  partly  seemed  to  point  to  a  dependence  of 
the  former  on  the  latter.  For  instance,  the  similari- 
ties existing  between  the  biblical  and  the  Babylon 
Creation  and  Flood  stories,  between  the  laws  of 
Moses    and    those    of    Hammurabi,    between    the 

55 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

Jewish  and  the  Persian  doctrines  of  angels  and 
devils,  of  resurrection  and  world-judgment,  be- 
tween the  evangelic  and  the  Buddhistic  miracle- 
legends.  Therewith  the  critical  analysis  of  the 
traditional  doctrines  of  faith,  which  had  begun  with 
externals  (creation  and  world-picture),  finally  ar- 
rived at  the  central  point :  even  the  doctrines  of 
Christ  and  of  salvation  were  questioned,  disrobed  at 
least  of  their  unique  miraculous  character,  in  place 
of  which  here,  too,  conditioning  by  time  and  his- 
tory were  substituted.  So  the  fight  between  modern 
science  and  ancient  doctrines  of  faith  was  taken  up 
along  the  whole  line;  and  with  greatest  vigor,  it  is 
still  being  fought.  We  are  standing  in  the  midst 
of  it.  How  will  it  end?  Will  they  prove  to  be  in 
the  right  who  see  the  end  of  religion  in  the  victory 
of  science?  Or  will  the  rigid  defenders  of  the  tra- 
ditional faith  prove  right  in  their  conviction  that 
faith  will  emerge  from  the  present  crisis  unharmed 
and  unchanged?  Or,  will  neither  combatant  main- 
tain his  ground? 

This  much  is  certain:  Church-rulership  over 
science  to-day,  or  in  the  future,  is  out  of  the  ques- 
tion. Such  rulership  was  possible  only  as  long  as 
the  Church  ruled  the  entire  spiritual  life  of  society, 
and,  as  in  the  Middle  Ages,  an  independent  tem- 
poral science  had  not  yet  arisen.  Later,  relations 
were  reversed;  in  the  age  of  enlightenment  when 
the  human  spirit  became  conscious  of  its  rights  and 
its  capacity  for  independent  thought  untrammeled 

56 


Religion  and  Science 

by  authority,  then  science  made  the  bold  claim  to 
rule  over  religion.  Emancipated  reason  arranged 
its  "  natural  religion,"  made  up  of  abstract  concep- 
tions, and  whatever  of  historical  religion  did  not  fit 
into  this  free  construction  of  reflection  was  simply 
thrown  aside  as  meaningless  and  worthless.  This 
was  the  equally-one-sided  companion-piece  to  the 
religion  of  authority  preceding,  and  for  that  reason 
it  could  not  be  permanent.  It  is  clear  that  science, 
as  little  as  art,  can  make  religion,  for  both  are  a  his- 
torically-given and  self-developing  life,  which  can 
no  more  be  created  than  it  can  be  destroyed  by 
argumentation.  And  the  purpose  of  religion,  as  of 
art,  lies  as  little  in  the  increase  of  our  knowledge  of 
the  world ;  but  religion  seeks  to  put  our  hearts  into 
right  relation  to  God,  and  therewith  to  give  us  the 
right  view-point  for  judgment  of  the  world  and  of 
life  according  to  its  relation  to  our  emotion  and 
volition.  For  that  reason  the  intellectualism  of  the 
age  of  enlightenment  was  mistaken.  Against  the 
enlightenment  such  men  as  Rousseau,  Hamann, 
Herder,  Schleiermacher  and  others  rose  up;  this 
was  the  new  tendency  which  is  generally  termed 
"  Romanticism," — a  passionate  protest  against  the 
supremacy  of  the  understanding  in  favor  of  the 
rights  of  the  heart  and  the  fantasy,  the  emotions, 
the  notions  and  the  moods  of  men.  'According  to 
Schleiermacher,  religion  is  a  feeling  of  the  infinite 
in  the  finite,  or  a  feeling  of  alxsolute  dependence; 
each  religion  is  equally  true  in  so  far  as  it  is  a  mat- 

57 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

ter  of  the  feeling's,  but  with  tlie  triitli  of  science  it 
has  notliing  whatsoever  to  do. 

It  is  this  notion  which  governs  in  the  New-roman- 
ticism of  to-day.  Reh'gion  and  science,  so  men  say, 
slioiild  stand  peaceal)ly  one  alongside  the  other  and 
suffer  each  to  go  its  way  in  peace,  one  not  caring 
about  the  other.  Science  should  confine  itself  to 
the  knowledge  of  the  causal  connection  of  finite 
things  and  events,  while  religion  has  nothing  to  do 
with  knowledge  either  of  God  or  the  world,  but 
only  with  the  experiences  of  the  spirit,  our  inner 
life,  which  are  completely  indei>endent  of  the  truths 
of  science  and  have  their  value  in  themselves,  in 
the  benevolent  and  consolatory  feelings  which  give 
us  an  inner  satisfaction  irrespective  of  all  that  may 
be  said  about  its  "truth." 

Nowadays  that  seems  a  welcome  way  of  escape 
for  many,  an  easy  peace-proposition  in  the  bitter 
struggle  between  religion  and  science.  Pity  it  is, 
that  with  this  division  of  understanding  and  heart, 
the  opposition  is  not  reduced,  but  simply  hidden  and 
laid  over.  Let  us  be  honest  and  try  to  make  clear 
to  ourselves  the  actual  condition  of  things.  What 
does  science  want?  Simply  to  know  certain  sep- 
arate relations  here  and  there  in  the  different  realms? 
Will  science  ever  give  up  the  attempt  to  move  from 
single  relations  to  others  until  it  has  completed  a 
world-picture  which  shall  embrace  all?  Certainly 
not.  But,  suppose  science  arrives  at  a  mechanical 
materialism  as  the  explanation  of  the  world  which 

58 


Religion  and  Science 

robs  the  faith  in  God  of  all  meaning  except  such  as 
is  contained  in  Fetierbach's  illusion  theory.  Can 
religion  rest  satisfied  with  that?  Can  the  religious 
feelings  maintain  their  value  if  they  are  directed  to- 
ward an  object  which  has  been  recognized  as  a  sub- 
jective creation  of  illusion?  In  fact,  there  can  be 
no  doubt,  all  religion  would  then  be  at  an  end ;  its 
experiences  and  emotions  would  soon  cease  if  the 
fundamental,  the  truth  of  the  idea  of  God,  were 
withdrawn  and  they  were  left  susjx^nded  in  the  air, 
so  to  speak.  Then  religion  cannot  peacefully  stand 
alongside  a  scientific  view  of  the  world  which  is 
atheistic;  religion  could  not  suffer  it  without  giving 
itself  up.  But  let  us  take  another  view  of  the 
matter. 

The  na'ive  mode  of  religious  thinking  prefers  to 
attach  its  pious  feelings  to  the  wonder-legends  and 
therefore,  demands  that,  for  the  sake  of  the  value  of 
those  feelings,  the  miracle  should  have  the  validity 
of  truth,  and  science  should  acknowledge  it  to  be 
such.  Will  science,  for  the  sake  of  sweet  peace, 
quietly  submit  to  such  a  demand?  It  is  well  kncnvn 
that  science  refuses  to  do  so,  and  regarded  from  the 
standpoint  of  science,  justifiably  so,  for  this  demand 
is  nothing  short  of  a  command  to  give  up  the  com- 
plete lawfulness  of  all  becoming  in  time  and  space, 
which  is  the  fundamental  presupposition,  the  coiiditio 
sine  qua  non,  of  all  scientific  thinking  and  know- 
ing in  the  world.  Science  cannot  yield  this  ground, 
cannot  make  this  concession  to  the  religious  way  of 

59 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 


'to 


tliinking,  without  yielding  itself  up.  In  truth,  the 
matter  stands  thus :  The  compromise  between  re- 
ligion and  science,  on  the  basis  of  a  mutual  ignoring 
and  indulgence,  is  deceptive  and  untenable,  however 
V  acceptable  it  may  seem  to  the  superficial  eye.  Such 
cheap  subterfuges  will  not  stand  permanently ;  they 
are  merely  pillows  upon  which  the  ease-loving  and 
lazy-thinking  seek  to  rest,  hence  they  are  not  fitting 
for  an  earnest  and  honest  science  of  religion.  The 
latter  cannot  thrust  aside  the  task  of  seeking  a  posi- 
tive mediation  between  religion  and  science,  a  rela- 
tion of  honest  mutual  recognition,  respect  and 
furtherance. 

The  God-idea  itself  is  the  guarantee  that  it  must 
be  possible  to  find  sucli  a  relation  between  the  two, 
in  so  far  as  that  idea  involves  the  unity  of  world- 
cause  and  world-purpose,  the  final  of  all  knowing 
and  willing.  Just  as  that  idea  for  morals  contains 
the  deepest  foundation  and  perfection  of  duty  and 
right  volition,  so  for  science,  it  contains  the  final 
ground  and  the  finishing  goal  of  all  knowledge  of 
the  world.  That  is  the  decisive  point,  concerning 
which  there  must  be  no  misunderstanding.  As  has 
been  said,  the  presupposition  of  science  is  the  un- 
deviating  lawfulness  of  all  the  world  phenomena 
and  the  steady  evolution  of  all  life  in  nature  and 
history.  Upon  what  is  this  presupposition  of  law- 
fulness based  ?  On  proofs  of  any  sort?  Not  at  all ; 
it  is  the  basis  of  all  the  proofs  of  inductive  research 
and,  therefore,  cannot  itself  be  proved.     Its  first 

60 


Religion  and  Science 

beginning  is  a  hypothesis  of  faith,  a  postulate  of 
reason  which  would  know  the  world  in  logically 
ordered  thinking  and,  therefore,  must  necessarily 
assume  that  the  world  is  a  reasonably  ordered 
whole,  a  lawful  connection  of  being  and  becoming. 
What  else  is  involved  in  this  assumption  of  faith 
which  reason  necessarily  makes?  If  the  world  is 
a  law-abiding  arrangement  of  interacting  finite 
forces,  the  question  arises  at  once :  Whence  comes 
this  order?  Inasmuch  as  it  governs  the  multitudi- 
nous number  of  finite  beings  and  powers,  or  joins 
them  into  a  unity  or  cosmos,  it  cannot  possibly  have 
its  origin  in  the  many  and  the  finite ;  it  must  rather 
be  the  product  of  a  uniform  cause  which  the  multi- 
plicity presupposes,  one  prime  power  underlying  all 
finite  powers  as  the  infinite ,  source  of  power  or 
omnipotence;  yet,  at  the  same  time,  it  must  be  a 
reasonable  principle,  otherwise  there  could  not  possi- 
bly be  a  reasonable  order  in  its  activity  in  the  single 
powers:  hence,  underlying  the  reasonable,  ordered 
multiplicity,  there  will  be  an  omnipotent,  creative 
reason  wdiich  is  the  unity,  the  world-principle  or 
God.  Or  if,  instead  of  starting  from  the  object 
of  thought,  we  begin  with  the  thinking  subject  him- 
self, we  arrive  at  the  same  result.  Are  the  logical 
laws  of  our  reason  invented  or  made  by  ourselves? 
Found,  yes.  that  is,  raised  into  consciousness  and  set 
in  conceptual  formuLx,  they  have  been,  by  thinking 
men,  by  philosophers  like  Aristotle  or  Kant,  men 
who  have  thought  searchingly  concerning  human 

6i 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

thinking  itself ;  but  certainly  the  logical  laws  of 
the  human  reason  were  not  made  by  these  thinkers, 
just  as  little  as  the  arithmetical  and  geometrical  laws 
were  made  by  the  mathematicians,  or  the  physical 
laws  by  the  physicists,  who  first  discovered  and 
formulated  them.  The  laws  of  our  thinking  are 
not  products  of  our  thinking,  but  they  are  the  pre- 
suppositions which  alone  make  our  thinking  possi- 
ble; as  Kant  says,  they  are  the  "  previously-given  " 
or  a  priori.  Whence,  then,  originates  this  core  of 
human  thinking,  common  to  us  all  and  previously- 
given  to  all?  A  non-thinking  cause  would  not 
explain  it,  and,  therefore,  there  remains  but  the  one 
assumption  that  it  originates  in  a  thinking  which  is 
presupposed  by  all  human  thinking  and  which  is 
superhuman,  that  same  creative  reason  of  God  in 
which  the  lawful  order  of  the  external  world  of 
nature,  found  its  basis. 

Concerning  the  thought  of  evolution  which  gov- 
erns the  natural  and  historical  sciences  of  to-day,  it 
must  be  said  that  it  does  not  stand  in  conflict  with 
the  religious  belief  in  God,  when  it  becomes  clear 
what  the  conception  of  evolution  really  includes.  It 
is  not  merely  a  casually-conditioned  consequence  of 
various  circumstances  (as,  for  example,  of  the 
weather,  or  of  the  surface  of  the  earth,  or  of  a  dis- 
integrating organism — of  these,  no  one  uses  the 
term  "evolution"),  but  it  is  such  a  continuous 
alteration  of  the  conditions  of  one's  living,  that  is 
governed  from  the  beginning  by  a  permanent  im- 

62 


Religion  and  Science 

pulse,  striving  toward  the  final  goal  of  the  entire 
process.  All  evolution  strives  to  attain  one  goal 
and  this,  its  purpose,  which  is  one  finally  with  the 
phenomenon,  as  Aristotle  even  said,  is  from  the  be- 
ginning the  driving  power  and  the  governing  law  of 
the  entire  process.  Now  modern  science  has  taught 
us  to  regard  the  total  of  life  in  nature,  in  its  mani- 
fold forms  and  stages,  as  a  connected  and  uniform 
evolution.  Good.  That  only  justifies  us  the  more 
in  asking  after  the  purpose  of  this  all-embracing 
evolution  of  life  in  nature,  and  of  finding  it  in  man. 
who  is  the  objective-point  and  highest  peak,  being  a 
child  of  nature,  and  yet  more  than  nature,  because 
he  is  a  thinking  being,  a  being  with  reason.  Now 
we  are  reminded,  naturally,  that  the  beginning  of 
humanity  is  not  to  be  thought  of  as  a  sublime 
spirituality,  but  rather  as  a  very  low  animal-like 
naturalness ;  that  is  very  likely,  for  even  to-day 
every  child  of  man  must  commence  with  a  similar 
modest  beginning.  But  the  conclusion  therefrom 
is  only  this,  that  the  natural  man  is  not  the  final 
purpose;  the  evolution  of  life  does  not  rest  with 
him  as  such,  but  goes  on,  no  longer  as  a  process 
of  nature,  but  as  a  historical  process  of  culture. 

But  what  is  the  purpose  of  the  ever-to-be-sought 
and  partially-achieved  goal  of  historical  culture?  It 
is  the  development  of  the  reason-tendency  of  man 
into  a  real  reasoning,  moral  personality;  it  is  the 
becoming  of  the  spiritual  man.  who  conquers  nature, 
of  and  about  himself,  making  it  serve  as  a  means  of 

63 


Religion  and  Historic   Faiths 

the  free  spirit.  If  the  last  goal  of  all  natural  and 
historical  development  is  spirit,  in  the  formal  and 
the  real  sense  of  the  word,  must  we  not  presuppose, 
that  the  cause  of  the  entire  development  was  spirit, 
creative  spirit,  setting  and  realizing  its  purpose? 
Or  is  it  thinkable  that  at  the  end  there  should  be 
found  something  in  the  result  which  had  not  been 
present  in  some  fashion  in  the  cause?  Can  spirit 
arise  out  of  spiritless  matter?  That  would  be  the 
greatest  of  the  world-riddles.  Hence,  it  may  prop- 
erly be  said,  that  the  law-abiding  order  and  de- 
velopment of  nature  and  history,  this  fundamental 
thought  of  science,  does  not  exclude  the  belief  in 
God,  but  rather  demands  it  for  its  own  foundation. 
Thus  is  the  harmonization  of  science  and  religion 
made  certain. 

But  a  peace-compact  between  them  is  not  all  that 
is  possible ;  they  can  and  they  should  mutually  help 
one  another.  Religion  contains  a  regulative  for 
science,  in  so  far  as  it  protests  against  one-sided 
world-views,  such  as  materialism,  positivism,  nihil- 
ism and  illusionism,  in  whch  the  facts  of  the  spirit- 
ual, particularly  of  tlie  moral-religious  life,  are 
deprived  of  part  of  their  rights.  Conversely,  science 
serves  as  a  regulative  for  religion ;  for  with  that 
which  science  has  recognized  to  be  undoubted  truth 
concerning  nature  or  history,  the  religious  view  of 
the  world  must  place  itself  in  harmony,  and  what- 
ever therein  contradicts  the  traditional  ideas  can 
not  retain   validity  as   actual  objective  truth.     A 

64 


Religion  and  Science 

double  natiired  truth  is  an  impossibility ;  that  would 
be  a  self-contradiction  of  reason  and  a  denial  of  the 
unity  of  God,  who  is  the  one  cause  of  all  truth. 

Religion,  therefore,  must  abandon  such  traditional 
ideas  as  contradict  the  verified  scientific  knowledge 
of  truth.  In  the  course  of  its  history  this  has  been 
done  often  enough,  even  though  it  was  regretfully 
and  reluctantly  done.  In  the  end,  however,  it  was 
always  manifest  that  religion  lost  nothing  of  its 
actual  value  by  such  concessions,  but  rather  gained 
in  spiritual  depth  and  purity.  For  those  ideas  were 
no  more  than  the  impurities  left  over  from  the  child- 
hood period  of  the  race;  the  sensual  forms  and  the 
wrappings  which  survive  from  the  nature  religion 
are  being  consumed  in  the  fire  of  scientific  criticism, 
so  that  their  spiritual  content  remains  increasingly 
pure,  and  religion  approaches  more  and  more  closely 
to  the  ideal — the  worship  of  God  in  spirit  and  in 
truth.  This  end  is  served  particularly  by  the  widen- 
ing of  the  angle  of  vision,  so  that  it  includes  not 
merely  a  single  positive  religion  but  the  whole  his- 
tory of  religion.  Naturally,  a  naive  piety  at  first 
is  pained  and  disturbed  even  by  that,  as  we  had 
occasion  to  sec  recently  in  the  Babel-Bible  con- 
troversy. 

But  it  is  a  fact  that  only  he  really  knows  one 
religion  who  knows  more  than  one  religion.  Not 
only  does  the  study  of  comparative  religions  make  us 
tolerant  in  our  attitude  toward  other  religions,  be- 
cause  it   demonstrates   that   the  divine  logos   dis- 

65 


Religion  and   Historic  Faiths 

tributed  the  seed-corns  of  the  true  and  the  good 
throughout  the  world  among  men,  but  it  also  teaches 
us  to  understand  our  own  religion  better  because  of 
the  clearer  differentiation  between  the  essential  and 
the  accidental,  the  permanent  and  the  temporary. 

The  question  is  asked :  But  what  becomes  of 
"  revelation  "  in  all  of  this?  Well,  it  is  apparent  that 
we  shall  have  to  relinquish  the  notion  of  a  unique 
revelation  and  of  a  single,  infallible  revelation ;  but, 
in  the  end,  that,  too,  is  no  harm,  but  a  benefit.  For 
not  until  then  do  we  learn  to  know  revelation  in  its 
full  breadth  and  greatness  and  in  its  divine-human 
nature,  as  the  one  divine  light,  which,  through  the 
medium  of  human  spirits,  breaks  into  manifold  rays 
and  colors.  No  longer  is  it  narrowed  to  one  little 
corner  of  the  earth  called  Palestine,  or  to  a  time 
long  since  past,  but  in  all  lands  and  in  all  ages  God 
has  made  Himself  known  and  has  permitted  pure 
souls  to  find  Him,  when  they  sought  Him  with 
earnestness  and  reverence.  If,  thereby,  Christian- 
ity is  robbed  of  its  title  to  being  the  only  religion,  it 
does  not  alter  the  fact  that  it  is  the  highest  and  the 
best.  Our  valuation  of  our  own  religion  no  longer 
remains  an  untested  faith,  but  by  comparison  with 
other  historical  religions  becomes  knowledge  tried 
and  tested. 

Thus,  we  achieve  the  result  that,  instead  of  de- 
stroying religion,  science  has,  from  of  old,  per- 
formed the  most  valuable  services  for  religion  and 
will  continue  to  perform  them.     But  science  can 

66 


Religion  and  Science 

only  do  this,  if  religion  does  not  assume  guardian- 
ship over  it,  granting  the  fullest  freedom  to  re- 
search, and  even  more,  regarding  science  as  a 
servant  of  truth,  that  is,  of  God.  The  more  the 
light  of  knowledge  unites  with  the  warmth  of  the 
heart  and  with  the  strength  of  faith,  love  and  hope, 
so  much  the  more  will  man  become  the  temple  of  the 
living  God. 


67 


ly 


THE   BEGINNINGS    OF    RELIGION 

What  do  we  know  of  the  beginnings  of  religion? 
Accurately  speaking,  nothing.  For  all  historical 
testimony  does  not  carry  us  back  to  the  first  begin- 
nings of  religion,  any  more  than  it  does  to  those 
of  language.  If  we  wish  to  be  honest,  we  must 
confess  that  we  know  nothing  of  the  conditions 
which  obtained  at  the  beginning  of  man  in  general, 
and  that  we  never  will  have  certain  knowledge  con- 
cerning them.  Suppositions  only  can  be  offered, 
suppositions  which  may  have  more  or  less  probabil- 
ity as  far  as  they  rest  on  reasoning  backward  by 
analogy,  from  things  known  to  things  unknown ; 
but  they  are  always  to  be  differentiated  carefully 
from  certain  knowledge;  none  of  these  hypotheses 
can  be  verified,  hence  there  need  be  no  controversy 
rgarding  them. 

Such  suppositions  are  above  all  based  on  analo- 
gies with  the  present  primitive  (wild)  people,  con- 
cerning whom  it  may  be  accepted  that  they  are 
comparatively  nearest  to  the  beginnings  of  the 
human  race.  In  the  religions  of  the  cultured,  there 
are  to  be  found  everywhere  certain  elements  which 

68 


The  Beginnings  of  Religion 

do  not  harmonize  witli  tlie  high  state  of  culture  ob- 
taining, with  the  average  plane  of  the  intellectual 
and  moral  culture,  hence  they  may  be  regarded  as 
survivals  of  some  previous  plane.  If  these  sur- 
vivals correspond  or  are  closely  related  to  the  com- 
mon fundamentals  of  the  religion  of  the  primitives 
the  supposition  seems  not  without  justification,  that 
traces  of  the  beginnings  of  religion  may  have  been 
preserved  in  them.  Care  must  be  had  in  such  rea- 
soning backward,  for  it  cannot  be  asserted  at  the 
outset  that  the  religion  of  the  wild  man  is  really  a 
petrified  beginning  of  all  human  religion ;  the  possi- 
bility of  regress,  a  degeneration  from  higher  begin- 
nings, is  not  to  be  disregarded,  the  less  so,  since 
many  signs  tend  to  the  demonstration  of  such  a 
fact. 

We  must  also  guard  against  the  frequent  confu- 
sion of  the  oldest  theoretical  basis  of  religion  with  re- 
ligion itself.  The  primitive  world-view,  or  childish 
folk  metaphysics,  which  may  be  recognized  every- 
where, with  astonishing  regularity,  as  the  common 
basis  of  the  most  varied  religions,  is  "  Animism," 
which  is  to  be  understood  as  a  belief  in  souls  or 
spirits  in  the  broadest  sense.  This  belief  compasses 
a  diversity  of  things,  and,  therefore,  cannot  be 
explained  by  a  single  psychological  root,  but  re- 
quires a  number  of  them.  The  first  is  ascribing 
soul  to  nature,  as  we  may  observe  it  to-day,  un- 
consciously done  by  children  and  consciously  done 
by  poets.     This  explains  itself;  the  natural  tendency 

69 


Religion  and   Historic   Faiths 

of  man  conceives  external  objects  as  analogous  to 
his  own  inner  conditions,  carrying  over  to  them 
his  own  emotions  and  passions  especially  regard- 
ing all  the  effects  arising  from  the  objects  after 
the  analogy  of  his  own  activities,  hence  looking 
upon  them  as  voluntary  actions,  which  predicate 
a  friendly  or  inimical  intention  on  the  part  of  the 
object  acting.  So  the  child  strikes  the  foot  of  the 
table,  against  wliich  he  struck  himself,  because  he 
regards  the  unpleasant  effect  as  a  consequence  of 
the  inimical  purpose  of  the  table,  upon  which  he 
then  seeks  to  revenge  himself.  So  deeply  rooted  is 
this  tendency  to  personification  or  psychification  of 
things,  that  civilized  man  occasionally  grows  angry 
at  "  the  perversity  of  things,"  as,  for  instance,  when 
the  pen  refuses  to  write.  Why  should  we  wonder 
then  at  primitive  man,  when  he  ascribes  to  all  the 
things  in  nature,  the  immovable  and  more  espe- 
cially the  movable  things,  a  manlike  soul  with 
friendly  or  inimical  purposes?  At  first,  this  soul  is 
in  no  way  dissociated  from  the  material  thing;  it  is 
nothing  other  than  the  thing  itself  conceived  as  a 
being  with  emotions  and  will,  hence  very  different 
from  the  free  gods.  How  might  these  latter  have 
become  possible?  Several  psychological  motives 
may  have  contributed  thereto. 

Foremost,  the  experiences  of  the  dream-phenom- 
ena: When,  in  a  dream,  we  experience  the  presence 
of  people  who  live  at  a  great  distance  or  of  friends 
long,  since  dead,  and  they  seem  to  live  again  with 

70 


The  Beginnings  of  Religion 

us,  or  when  we  journey  to  distant  lands  and  experi- 
ence wonderful  things,  then  zee  know  that  our  fan- 
tasy has  conjured  up  these  pictures,  but  the  primitive 
man  does  not  know  that  and  therefore  considers 
such  phenomena  to  be  just  as  real  as  those  of  his 
waking  hours ;  yet,  his  understanding  tells  him  that 
it  was  not  possible  for  his  body  to  make  such  long 
journeys  in  the  few  short  hours  of  the  night,  and 
that  distant  or  dead  friends  could  not  have  entered 
bodily  through  the  closed  doors  and  visited  him. 
One  explanation  remains  for  him :  for  the  time  his 
soul  wandered  out  of  his  body  into  distant  space, 
and  the  souls  of  his  friends  visited  him  in  the  night. 
This  soul  is  regarded  as  the  exact  double  of  the 
bodily  man,  only  that  it  consists  of  an  air-like 
material,  and,  therefore,  it  is  far  more  mobile  than 
his  coarse-material  body  to  which,  as  its  ordinary 
dwelling-place,  the  soul  is  usually  bound,  but  it  can 
leave  him  at  times  and  wander  about  freely.  That 
the  soul  can  forsake  its  body  permanently,  primitive 
man  becomes  convinced  at  the  sight  of  the  dying: 
he  sees  the  change  of  the  body,  a  moment  ago  it 
moved  with  strength,  now  a  quiet  man  lies  there 
and  he  can  explain  this  change  only  by  saying  that 
the  soul  has  forsaken  this  body,  with  the  last  breath 
it  rode  away ;  therefore,  he  concludes,  it  is  identical 
with  a  breath,  a  wind  ;  or  it  escaped  with  the  stream- 
ing blood,  hence  it  resides  in  the  blood,  it  is  its 
warmth,  its  vapor.  That  the  soul  should  cease  to 
be  at  the  death  of  the  body  is  a  thought  entirely 

71 


Religion  and   Historic  Faiths 

foreign  to  the  primitive;  it  has  merely  wandered 
off,  but  it  does  certainly  live  on  as  a  breath  or  a 
shadow,  and  this  is  the  more  certain,  for  it  appears 
again  often  in  dreams  or  hallucinations.  The  de- 
parted soul  can  return  and  enter  into  a  new  body 
as  a  dwelling-place,  either  into  a  human  body,  into 
some  new-bom  grandchild  as  the  Indians  believe 
and  thus  explain  atavism,  or  into  an  animal 
body,  particularly  of  birds  and  snakes,  which  are 
frequently  regarded  as  the  embodiment  of  an- 
cestors' souls.  These  ancestors'  souls  differ  from 
the  souls  of  the  things  of  nature  spoken  of  above 
by  their  decided  human  individuality  and  their 
freedom  from  bodily  limitations,  their  independent 
freedom  of  motion ;  as  against  that,  these  souls  must 
do  without  the  powerful  and  constant  enduring 
mode  of  action  which  pertains  to  the  greater  of  the 
things  nature  endowed  with  soul.  A  fusion  of 
these  two  conceptions  of  souls  could  not  be  far 
from  their  thoughts,  and  therein  the  idea  of  god- 
beings  was  included. 

Meanwhile  a  third  form  of  spirit  must  be  added, 
which  is,  to  a  certain  extent,  rooted  in  primitive 
logic — spirits  based  on  abstract  ideas,  which  have 
been  made  independent  and  personified.  When  sin- 
gle trees  or  springs  of  water  strike  the  primitive 
man,  he  may  well  worship  the  powerful  and  benefi- 
cent soul  therein  as  a  deity ;  but  when  the  same  man 
sees  many  trees  gathered  together  as  a  wood,  he 
groups  the  many  single  specimens  into  a  unit  of  the 

72 


The  Beginnings  of  Religion 

kind  and  thinks  of  this  unit  again  as  an  independent 
spirit-being,  which  bears  to  each  single  tree  the 
relation  of  prototype  and  creator  of  its  particular 
life : — the  forest-god.  In  like  fashion,  there  emerges 
from  the  single  springs  a  general  water-god,  above 
single  fires,  a  fire-god ;  above  the  winds,  the  wind- 
god — everywhere  the  idea  of  the  species  made  in- 
dependent as  the  creative  power  of  the  single 
phenomena.  So,  too,  animal  and  plant  species  are 
traced  back  to  one  typical  original  as  the  divine 
creator  and  preserver  of  each  individual  specimen. 
Finally,  every  human  social  group — races,  genera- 
tions and  families  —  is  traced  back  to  a  single 
divine  ancestor,  which  is  scarcely  the  spirit  of  an 
individual  progenitor,  but  rather  a  spirit-being 
growing  out  of  the  idea  of  the  unity  of  the  group 
and  then  made  independent.  In  this  same  category 
of  personification  of  abstract  ideas  belong  the  gods 
of  activities  and  conditions,  such  as  growth,  fertility, 
birth  and  death,  disease  and  health,  war  and  peace 
and  every  other  form  of  cultural  activity  possible, 
as  well  as  virtues  and  vices  and  the  like.  Lately, 
this  sort  of  deities  of  activity  have  been  designated 
as  "  momentary  deities,"  because  they  only  make 
themselves  manifest  at  times,  and  they  are  re- 
garded as  the  original  forms,  out  of  which,  in  the 
course  of  time,  the  permanent,  great  gods  de- 
veloped ;  such  a  theory  is  not  susceptible  of  proof. 
In  general,  it  seems  to  me  to  be  a  useless  dispute 
as  to  which  of  these  different  kinds  of  souls  or 

7i 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

spirits  may  have  been  the  earlier,  and  which  the 
later;  enough  that  they  are  to  be  found  in  all  of 
the  oldest  religions  known  to  us,  and  that  we  are 
able  to  explain  their  psychological  origin.  If  we 
cast  a  glance  at  the  historical  religions,  in  which 
that  which  was  primal  has  been  comparatively  best 
preserved,  such  as  the  Chinese  and  Egyptian,  the 
proximate  supposition  seems  to  be  that  the  being,  in 
which  a  particular  communal  group,  family  or  clan 
or  race  or  people  found  its  deity,  originated  in  a 
combination  of  the  collective  ancestral  spirits  of  the 
group  with  a  personified  nature-power,  either  of 
heaven  (China),  or  of  the  sun  (Japan,  Peru,  Egypt, 
Ra),  or  of  earth  and  earthly  spirits  of  fruitfulness 
(Isis-Osiris,  Magna  Mater),  or  of  a  certain  species 
of  animal  (the  sacred  animals  of  the  Egyptian  prov- 
inces and  other  totemistic  tribes).  Why,  in  particu- 
lar cases,  this,  that,  or  the  other  being  in  nature,  was 
deified,  we  cannot  explain,  and  it  is  not  essential ; 
the  main  fact  remains,  that  each  of  these  groups 
worships  in  its  god  the  power  by  which  their  com- 
mon life  as  members  thereof  and  their  nature-en- 
vironment was  caused  and  preserved ;  for  each  of 
his  worshippers,  the  god  is  the  creating  and  pre- 
serving power  of  life,  making  the  group  collectively 
permanent.  From  all  of  this  it  might  seem  as 
though  the  god  were  the  deified  person  of  some  his- 
torical ancestor, — the  well-known  theory  of  En- 
hemeros,  recently  taken  up  again  by  Herbert  Spen- 
cer and  others.     But  this  theory  is  erroneous ;  it  is 

74 


The  Beginnings  of  Religion 

refuted  by  the  indisputable  fact  that  the  tribe-god 
of  the  oldest  rehgions  is  not  thought  of  as  a  man, 
but  as  a  Hving  nature-being  of  heavenly  or  earthly 
kind.  Hence,  it  has  been  correctly  said  by  E. 
Caird  that  he  was  not  worshipped  as  a  god  because 
he  was  an  ancestor,  but  because  he  was  worshipped 
as  a  god  he  was  held  to  be  the  ancestor,  the  race- 
father  of  his  worshippers. 

Naturally,  for  us  it  is  an  idea  scarce  conceivable, 
that  a  sensual  object  of  nature,  such  as  heaven  or 
sun  or  earth,  or  a  mountain,  a  tree,  a  river,  an  ani- 
mal, should  have  produced  men;  but  we  must  not 
permit  the  difficulty  involved  to  lead  us  to  a  nega- 
tion of  this  idea,  which  recurs  everywhere  in  the 
oldest  religions  and  underlies  countless  myths,  nor 
must  we  permit  ourselves  to  weaken  it  to  a 
mere  imaginative  symbolism.  In  the  earliest  period 
there  is  no  such  thing  as  symbolism  in  the  sense 
of  conscious  picture-language;  at  that  time  every- 
thing had  actual,  bodily  meaning.  Besides,  there 
are  two  things  which  must  be  taken  into  con- 
sideration here:  first,  that  the  difficulty  involved 
herein  for  us  was  not  a  difficulty  for  early  men; 
and  for  this  reason  they  did  not  have  our  sharp 
differentiation  between  various  species  of  beings, 
between  men,  animals,  plants,  between  things  living 
and  things  without  life.  They  were  far  removed 
from  such  an  idea,  and  so,  too.  as  it  did  not  seem 
unnatural  to  them  that  the  one  should  go  over  or  be 
transformed  into  the  other,  so  it  did  not  seem  im- 


Religion  and   Historic  Faiths 

possible  to  them  that  the  one  should  be  born  of  the 
other. 

However,  let  us  not  overlook  the  fact  that  in 
this  idea  which  seems  so  incredible  to  us,  there  is 
hidden  a  core  of  reason.  In  the  idea  of  the  tribal- 
god,  early  man  united  two  things  into  one,  the 
superhuman,  mysterious,  permanent  power  which 
is  expressed  in  his  nature-side,  and  the  close  rela- 
tionship with  men,  which  he  maintains  in  his  capac- 
ity as  the  father  of  the  tribe ;  a  relationship  which 
causes  mutual  connection,  that  of  protecting  ruler- 
ship  on  the  one  side  and  of  veneration  on  the  other. 
If  he  were  not  a  nature-being,  then  he  would  not 
possess  that  superior,  permanent  power  which  is 
not  separable  from  the  god-idea;  if  he  were  not 
at  the  same  time  the  father  (or  the  mother)  of  the 
tribe,  the  source  of  the  common  life  of  the  genera- 
tions, the  firm  bond  uniting  him  with  men,  the  point 
of  contact  of  the  religious  relation,  would  be  miss- 
ing. So  you  see  that  that  idea  which  at  first 
glance  seemed  to  us  so  paradoxical,  even  grotesque, 
that  idea  of  god  in  primitive  religion,  is  only  the 
naive,  and  for  the  childish  spirit,  the  only  possible 
form  of  expression  of  that  reasonable  thought  of 
God,  as  the  unity  of  the  superhuman  and  inner 
human  being,  of  nature  and  spirit. 

From  the  beginning,  this  idea  of  God  served  not 
only  to  furnish  the  other  part  of  a  religious  alliance, 
but  it  was  also  the  moral  bond  of  community  for 
the  worshippers  of  the  same  god.     Originally,  there 

76 


The  Beginnings  of  Religion 

was  no  other  moral  tic  for  man  than  this  rehgiotis 
one ;  the  members  of  the  tribe,  in  their  common  at- 
tachment to  their  divine  creator,  preserver  and 
protector,  felt  themselves  bound  into  a  solidarity 
with  one  another.  From  the  beginning,  the  re- 
ligious and  the  social  community  were  one  and  the 
same;  the  latter  could  not  extend  beyond  the  for- 
mer, hence  the  narrow  confines  of  the  cult-com- 
munity and  the  realm  of  the  god.  Yet,  however 
narrow  its  limits,  it  was  some  sort  of  a  community, 
in  which  a  religious  faith  was  cherished  and  cere- 
monially made  active.  The  opinion  that  religion 
began  as  a  matter  of  the  individual,  and  with  the 
worship  of  divine  beings  which  belonged  to  the 
individuals,  is  a  complete  error.  Everywhere  in 
human  history  the  natural  community  based  on 
blood-relationship  was  the  first;  in  this  solidarity 
the  individual  was  merged  without  regard ;  antl 
only  gradually  and  very  slowly  came  the  thought 
of  the  peculiar  right  and  justification  of  the  indi- 
vidual. Thus  it  was  in  all  the  realms  of  culture 
and  not  least  in  the  realm  of  religion.  Here, 
too,  the  beginning  was  the  C(Mnni(Mi  wcM'ship  by 
the  blood-related  group, — the  individual  had  n<^ 
other  gods  and  worshipped  no  other  gods  than 
those  of  his  tribe.  If  he  was  expelled  from  the 
tribe  or  excluded  from  the  cult,  he  felt  him- 
self thereby  separated  from  his  god,  and  a  prey 
to  strange  gods,  from  whom  nothing  good  was  to 
be  expected;   that   was  why  the  man  of  ancient 

77 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

days  dreaded  expulsion  from  his  native  place  and 
the  cult  of  his  home. 

Concerning  the  oldest  form  of  worship  of  God, 
scarcely  anything  can  be  said  without  running  the 
risk  of  carrying  later  customs  back  to  the  begin- 
nings. Appeals  to  the  god  and  sacrifices  were  prob- 
ably always  a  part  of  worship ;  but  it  is  a  difficult 
thing  to  say  what  the  original  meaning  of  the  sacri- 
fice was.  It  is  not  at  all  certain  that  it  was  a  tribute 
to  the  god  from  the  beginning;  many  signs  seem  to 
point  in  favor  of  the  view  of  Robertson  Smith,  the 
learned  and  keen  research-worker  in  religion,  who 
holds  that  the  sacrifice  was  originally  nothing  else 
than  a  "  holy  communion,"  whether  it  be  taken  in 
the  sense  of  a  common  meal  to  which  the  gods 
were  invited  as  guests  and  received  their  portion 
of  the  food  and  drink,  or,  perhaps,  in  the  older 
sense,  that  the  life  of  the  god  itself  was  thought 
to  dwell  in  the  life  of  the  man  or  beast  sacrificed 
and,  by  the  enjoyment  of  this  raw  meat  and  blood, 
possession  of  the  divine  life  was  entered  into.  Ac- 
cording to  this,  the  later  customs  of  the  mysteries, 
which,  without  doubt,  had  some  such  underlying 
thought,  would  be  but  refined  forms  of  the  oldest 
sacrifice-worship.  This  same  purpose  of  union  with 
the  god  is  served  by  the  orgiastic  dances,  in  which 
the  participants  usually  enveloped  themselves  in  the 
garments  and  the  masks  of  the  gods:  they  thought 
that  thus  they  exchanged  their  nature  for  that  of 
the  god  and  the  ecstatic  ravings  appear,  then,  as  the 

78 


The  Beginnings  of  Religion 

effect  of  the  entrance  and  possession  of  them  by  the 
god  (enthusiasm).  In  remotest  antiquity,  there 
are  also  found  those  customs  generally  designated 
"  Analogy-magic  " — activities  which  imitate  a  di- 
vine activity,  such  as  fructifying  the  earth,  rain  and 
like  processes  of  nature,  in  order  to  hasten  or  pro- 
duce such  processes.  The  term  "  Analogy-magic  " 
is  likely  to  be  misleading,  for,  originally,  those  acts 
were  not  merely  put  forth  as  analogies  or  pictures, 
but  as  actual  and  effective  cooperation  with  the 
workings  of  the  god,  and  were  thus  regarded  as  a 
real  means  to  a  desired  effect.  Later,  when  this 
original  sense  was  no  longer  understood,  the 
activity  degenerated  into  a  mere  ceremony  and  a 
magic  effect  was  ascribed  to  it.  So,  generally,  the 
initial,  naive-religious  ceremonies  of  worship  might 
be  the  source  and  origin  of  what  was  later  actual 
"  magic,"  and,  therefore,  the  latter  is  not  a  begin- 
ning, but  a  degeneration  of  religion ;  for  in  it  man 
does  not  act  in  the  service  of  the  god  and  for  his 
purposes,  but  without  the  god  and  against  him,  man 
desires  to  achieve  his  own  purposes  by  mysterious 
means. 

A  like  reasoning  holds  of  fetishism,  which,  with- 
out any  more  right  than  in  the  case  of  magic, 
has  been  declared  to  be  a  beginning  of  religion. 
The  word  "  fetish  "  means  an  arbitrary  natural  or 
artificial  thing,  serving  as  a  ceremonial  means  of 
worship,  in  so  far  as  there  attaches  to  it  the  idea 
of  the  presence  and  effective  power  of  a  god.    Such 

79 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

sacramental  signs  of  the  pracscns  numcn  are  found 
in  all  cults,  because  they  satisfy  the  natural  need 
for  a  visible  representation  of  the  divine.  But 
nowhere  are  they  simply  identical  with  the  god,  no- 
where are  they  the  adequate  expression  of  its 
nature.  The  Japanese  considers  the  mirror  in  the 
temple  of  the  goddess  of  the  sun  as  a  sign  of  the 
presence  of  the  goddess,  but  it  never  occurs  to  him 
to  consider  it  as  the  divine  sun  itself.  How  would 
it  be  possible  to  explain  psychologically  that  men 
had  looked  upon  dead  things  as  their  gods,  when 
they  had  not  seen  any  activities  on  their  part?  It 
is  only  after  the  idea  of  God  had  been  won  in  the 
manner  already  described  that  arbitrary  things  could 
be  placed  in  such  relation  to  the  god  and  then  serve 
as  a  means  by  which  the  presence  of  the  god  at  the 
service  was  achieved.  Naturally,  the  superstitious 
idea  might  easily  grow  out  of  this,  as  though  the 
sacred  thing  in  itself,  aside  from  its  ceremonial  re- 
lation to  the  god,  possessed  a  supernatural  wonder- 
working power  which  the  individual  might  employ 
in  the  production  of  such  magical  effects  as  he 
desired.  Thus,  what  was  originally  a  means  of  wor- 
ship becomes  a  means  of  magic;  what  was  origi- 
nally a  pious  representation  of  the  god  forces  itself 
into  its  place  and  becomes  a  substitute  for  the  god. 
Fetishism  is  the  apt  name  for  this  superstitious  de- 
generation of  religion;  hence,  the  practice  of  calling 
fetishism  the  original  religion  of  men  ought,  finally, 
to  cease. 

80 


The  Beginnings  of  Religion 

If  you  wish  to  have  a  fixed  name  for  the  original 
rehgion,  such  as  our  reasoning  backward  from 
what  is  known,  proves  to  have  been  the  most 
probable,  then  I  would  propose  to  call  it  naive- 
patriarchal  Hcnotheism.  Naturally,  the  difference 
between  that  and  universal  ethical  monotheism  must 
be  well  kept  in  mind.  The  latter,  the  belief  in  one 
all-governing  God  did  not  develop  until  thousands 
of  years  had  elapsed ;  while  the  patriarchal  hcno- 
theism is  the  naive  belief  of  each  tribe  in  its  own 
particular  tribe-god  and  tribe-father,  which  is  for 
all  the  members  of  the  tribe  the  one  highest,  and, 
in  a  certain  sense,  that  of  producer,  the  one  actual, 
divine  power,  to  whom,  and  through  whom,  all  the 
members  of  the  tribe  feel  themselves  bound  abso- 
lutely. But  this  particular  tribal  god  of  each  sepa- 
rate tribe  does  not  in  any  way  exclude  the  tribal 
gods  of  other  tribes,  but  rather  presupposes  them ; 
he  stands  to  them  in  exactly  the  same  relationship 
of  rivalry,  and  nearly  always  of  decided  enmity,  as 
in  the  early  ages  one  tribe  stood  toward  its 
neighboring  tribes.  Again,  this  henotheism  is  not 
yet  a  spiritual-moral  theism,  for  this  tribal  god  is. 
as  we  have  seen,  entirely  an  object  of  nature,  and 
his  relation  to  his  worshippers  is  a  naturalistic  one, 
based  entirely  upon  physical  descent. 

Yet  we  will  be  permitted  to  say  that  despite  its 
childlike  simplicity,  this  initial  faith  contains  the 
germs  of  all  higher  religious  development.  Even 
here,  the  idea  of  God  releases  the  fundamental  re- 

8i 


Religion   and   Historic   Faiths 

ligfious  emotion — veneration — in  which  dependence 
and  freedom,  fear  and  confidence  are  united ;  it 
matters  not  that  now  one,  and  now  the  other,  gains 
greater  strength,  especially  the  fear  of  the  incalcul- 
able moods  of  the  nature-gods  which  play  so  large 
a  part.  And  it  is  not  to  be  gainsaid  that  even  this 
faith  has  its  moral  importance.  By  uniting  the 
comrades  of  one  tribe  in  a  common  worship,  he 
elevates  the  tie  of  blood-relationship  to  an  absolute 
obligation  of  reciprocal  solidarity,  and  impresses  on 
each  individual  the  elementary  moral  duty  of  sur- 
render to  the  common  welfare.  It  is  natural  that 
the  narrowness  of  the  religious  community  holds 
as  to  the  moral  obligation;  those  who  do  not  be- 
long to  the  tribe  are  strangers  and  enemies,  toward 
whom  this  early  stage  recognizes  no  such  thing  as 
a  moral  obligation.  Rather,  it  is  accounted  a  re- 
ligious duty  to  revenge  the  blood  of  a  member  of 
the  tribe  when  a  stranger  has  spilled  it;  this  duty 
of  blood-revenge,  with  the  endless  feuds  resulting 
therefrom,  was  a  great  obstruction  to  culture  every- 
where. Thus,  the  narrow  tribal  religion  acted 
within  as  a  disciplinary  and  cultivating  power ;  while 
without,  it  was  a  power  which  made  men  nearer  to 
the  beast  and  opposed  civilization. 

Progress  from  the  henotheistic  religion  of  the 
tribe  led  nearly  always  to  the  polytheistic  religion 
of  the  people.  Polytheism,  or  the  belief  in  a  num- 
ber of  gods,  one  alongside  the  other,  is  never  the 
original  religion,  but  the  result  of  historical  devel- 

82 


The  Beginnings  of  Religion 

opment.  When,  either  by  reason  of  treaties  or 
by  miHtary  subjection  of  one  under  the  other, 
various  tribes  unite  together  to  form  a  larger  peo- 
ple, they  retain  their  original  gods,  but  separation 
of  the  one  from  the  other  no  longer  can  be  main- 
tained. With  the  union  of  the  people,  the  need  of 
placing  the  particular  gods  in  some  ordered  rela- 
tion to  one  another  appears.  Either  the  gods  are 
genealogically  arranged  by  making  some  children 
and  grandchildren  of  others,  or  feudally  arranged 
by  gradation  of  rank  under  one  over-lord,  one  god- 
king,  who  is  usually  the  particular  deity  of  the 
governing  people  or  of  the  capital  city  of  the  reign- 
ing dynasty.  To  which  must  be  added,  that  in 
these  larger  social  groups,  culture  is  more  richly 
developed  and  differentiated;  various  trades  begin, 
the  arts,  the  political  and  military  vocations,  and 
then  a  special  group  for  the  regular  care  of  re- 
ligion, the  priesthood.  With  all  of  this,  the  life  of 
man  achieves  a  richer  content,  and  that,  in  turn. 
casts  its  reflection  upon  the  world  of  the  gods. 
Now  there  is  assigned  to  each  god  his  particular 
duties  and  department  of  government.  Thus,  each 
single  god  acquires  an  individual  character,  which 
he  had  not  had  as  a  tribal  god ;  now  they  become 
actual  personalities  after  the  image  of  men.  Natu- 
rally, at  this  stage,  the  former  animal  figure  of  the 
god  must  give  way  to  the  human  likeness.  This 
was  mainly  so  in  the  case  of  the  Greek  religion ; 
there     zoomorphism     disappeared     entirely.     Cer- 

83 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

tainly,  that  was  an  important  step  forward ;  for  not 
until  the  god  was  represented  as  a  man  could 
human  thoughts  and  free  action  with  a  conscious 
purpose  be  ascribed  to  him.  This  humanization 
of  the  old  nature-gods  was  not  completely  carried 
out  everywhere :  in  Egypt  the  process  stoj)ped 
half-way,  hence  those  remarkable  semi-animal 
and  semi-human  representations  of  the  gods  of 
the  Egyptians.  Among  the  Greeks  the  recollec- 
tion of  the  former  animal  form  is  preserved  only 
in  the  animals  which  accompany  the  gods  as 
symbols,  though  originally  they  were  more  than 
symbols. 

With  this  humanization  and  systemization  of  the 
gods  the  religious  relation  undergoes  a  change;  no 
longer  can  it  remain  the  simple  naturalistic  rela- 
tion of  descent,  for  the  various  families  of  a  peo- 
ple can  no  longer  be  related  by  blood  to  all  the 
gods  of  the  whole  people.  So  that  now,  instead 
of  the  patriarchal  tie,  there  appears  a  political  bond : 
the  people  see  in  the  gods  their  celestial  lords,  as  the 
princes  are  their  earthly  ones;  in  the  highest  god, 
they  see  the  heavenly  Olympian  king,  the  prototype 
of  the  mundane  king.  'And  herewith  enters  the 
most  important  motive  in  the  beliefs  of  the  peo- 
ples— the  god  of  the  people  is  held  to  be  the  origin- 
ator and  guardian  oi  the  civil  order  and  the  avenger 
of  injustice  which  violates  that  order.  Justice  on 
earth  derives  its  power  and  authority  from  justice 
in  heaven ;  hence   the  early  belief   in   the   divine 

84 


The  Beginnings  of  Religion 

Nemesis,  which  punishes  the  blasphemer  either 
here,  or,  as  the  Eg>'ptians  early  beheved,  in  the 
world  beyond.  Beyond  doubt,  this  belief  in  divine 
retribution  was  of  immeasurable  educative  impor- 
tance in  the  development  of  civilization  among  the 
peoples.  Again,  it  is  true,  that  with  the  sprouting 
of  human  culture,  the  phenomena  of  nature  were 
more  openly  and  objectively  regarded,  freer  from 
the  needs  of  the  moment;  the  regularity  of  the 
changes  of  the  seasons  and  the  movements  of  the 
heavenly  bodies  are  beginning  to  be  observed,  and 
in  this  order  of  the  world  of  nature,  there  is 
recognized  the  counterpart  of  the  moral-legal  order 
of  human  society.  Hence,  we  find  this  double- 
sided  order  frequently  combined  into  one  idea,  and 
in  several  religions  of  the  older  period,  it  is  par- 
tially personified  and  partly  regarded  as  an  imper- 
sonal power ;  thus,  among  the  Egyptians,  it  is  Maat, 
the  daughter  of  Ra ;  among  the  Indians,  Rita; 
among  the  Persians,  Asha  vahista ;  among  the  Chi- 
nese, Tao ;  among  the  Greeks,  Dike  and  Nemesis. 
Everywhere,  there  is  understood  by  it  a  uniform 
world-order,  which  includes  the  order  of  nature, 
the  civil  order  of  law.  tlic  religious  order  of  wor- 
ship. Of  course,  it  does  not  differ  essentially  from 
the  will  of  the  god,  but  is  rather  the  expression  of 
his  constant  world-ordering  government.  There- 
with, the  moodiness  and  the  arbitrariness  character- 
istic of  the  nature-gdds  disajiiicar,  and  regularity, 
righteousness,  wisdom,  and,  even  something  of  the 

8S 


Religion   and   Historic   Faith* 

character  of  goodness,  find  a  place  in  the  character 
of  the  god. 

Upon  this  plane,  we  find,  for  the  first  time,  moral 
characteristics  connected  with  the  idea  of  God;  it 
begins  to  be  an  ethical  and  spiritual  idea.  Natur- 
ally, this  moral  idealization  of  the  nature-gods  is 
not  accomplished  easily  nor  all  at  once,  for  both 
the  naturalistic  character  of  the  gods  of  the  people, 
more  or  less  crystallized  in  myths,  as  well  as  what 
has  been  said  above,  are  hindrances.  As  nature- 
beings,  the  gods  are  morally  indifferent  and  act 
upon  mood  and  natural  desire ;  as  bearers  of  the 
legal  order,  they  must  assume  the  attitude  of  order 
— the  two  are  hard  to  reconcile.  Hence,  those  re- 
markable contradictions  in  the  pictures,  for  ex- 
ample, of  Zeus,  Apollo  and  Hera  in  Homer ;  along- 
side the  frivolous  myths,  in  which  wickedness  and 
immorality  of  every  kind  are  told  concerning  the 
gods,  there  runs  an  ideal  trait  of  moral  elevation. 
In  some  measure,  one  might  say  that,  in  their  official 
life  as  regents  of  the  world,  they  are  moral  ideals; 
while  in  their  mjihical  private  life,  they  are  filled 
with  human  weakness  and  passions. 

The  progress  of  the  history  of  religion  moved 
mainly  along  the  line  of  this  struggle  between  the 
old  naturalism  and  the  higher  moral  ideal.  The 
serious  thinkers  and  prophets  struggled  on  the  side 
of  the  moral  ideal  everywhere,  but  they  were  rarely 
successful ;  the  mass  generally  stopped  at  uncertain 
compromises,    that    "  limping   to    both    sides,"    of 

86 


The   Beginnings  of  Religion 

which  Zarathustra  had  no  less  occasion  to  complain 
than  Elijah.  Hand  in  hand  with  this  struggle 
went  the  other  between  the  multiplicity  of  the  gods 
and  the  unity  of  the  divine  world-government. 
Progress  beyond  the  polytheism  of  the  popular  re- 
ligion went  forward  in  two  ways :  the  one  led 
through  philosophic  reflection  to  the  disintegration 
of  the  various  gods  into  a  single  all-god,  which,  as 
the  world-soul  or  the  world-spirit  fills  all,  vivifies 
it  and  serves  as  the  root  of  all  the  change  of  becom- 
ing and  dissolving  by  being  its  permanent  cause. 

This  pantheism  was  possible  with  polytheism, 
while  the  single  gods  were  regarded  as  forms  of 
manifestation  or  emanations  of  the  all-god,  as  was 
the  case  in  the  exoteric  Brahmanism  ami  Stoicism ; 
but,  with  a  rigid  acceptance  of  the  all-one  god,  the 
separate  gods  disappear,  as  does  the  manifold  of 
existence  in  general,  to  a  mere,  vain  semblance. 
The  other  path  starts  out  from  the  religious  demand 
for  a  uniform  moral  world-government  and  elevates 
the  highest  god  of  the  people  to  the  position  of  sole 
bearer  of  the  government  high  above  all  the  other 
gods,  lowering  the  latter  so  far  in  value  and  power, 
that  they  finally  lose  their  divine  character,  and  the 
highest  god  remains  finally  the  only  one.  That  is 
monotheism  or  the  belief  in  the  sole  rulership  of  one 
God  as  the  lord  of  the  entire  universe.  First  steps 
to  this  double-sided  development  are  to  be  found 
among  the  Egyptians  and  Chinese;  first  steps 
to    monotheism    are    found    among    the    Persians, 

87 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

Babylonians  and  Israelites,  but  the  last-named  alone 
fully  developed  it.  Pantheistic  unity  was  completed 
by  the  Indians  in  Brahmanism  and,  in  a  certain 
sense,  in  Buddhism  (which  has  also  been  termed 
atheism)  ;  while  among  the  Greeks,  it  remained 
merely  the  philosophic  teaching  of  single  schools 
(Eleatics,  Heraclitus,  Stoics).  Christianity  may  be 
interpreted  as  the  higher  unity  of  the  Jewish  and 
the  Greek  ideas  of  God. 

Finally,  a  word  about  the  division  of  the  history 
of  religion.  According  to  their  extent,  the  religions 
may  be  divided  into  tribal,  national  and  univer- 
sal (world-)  religions.  According  to  their  inner 
nature,  they  fall  into  two  main  groups:  nature- 
religions  and  historical  or  moral  or  personal  (pro- 
phetic) religions;  the  first  of  these  groups  may  be 
sub-divided  into  henotheistic  (tribal)  and  polythe- 
istic (national)  religions;  the  second  main  group 
may  be  sub-divided  into  religions  of  law  and  of 
redemption.  Little  as  may  be  urged  against  this 
division  in  theory,  its  practical  application  through- 
out is  difficult,  because  it  is  not  possible  without 
frequent  violent  disruption  of  historical  connections. 
Hence,  in  the  presentation  of  the  history  of  religion, 
I  prefer  a  more  modest  division,  either  the  ethno- 
logical (according  to  races  and  peoples)  or  the 
chronological ;  naturally,  even  with  this  division,  a 
certain  latitude  must  be  retained  for  the  sake  of 
fitness. 

88 


V 


THE    CHINESE   RELIGION 


We  begin  with  tliis  religion,  because  it  occupies 
a  position  peculiarly  isolated.  The  ancient  Chinese 
state-religion  is  not  actually  a  polytheistic  national 
religion,  for  it  lacks  all  mythology  as  well  as  an 
organized  priesthood.  It  might  be  termed  belief 
in  spirits  systematized  to  exact  correspondence  with 
the  political  organization  of  the  realm,  wherein 
the  higher  gods  resulted  from  a  fusion  of  the 
ancestral  spirits  of  the  ruling  families  with  the, 
higher  nature-spirits.  At  the  head  stands  heaven 
(Tien)  or  the  ''highest  lord"  (Shang-ti).  As 
Tiele  aptly  says,  in  him,  the  highest  oliject  of  the 
worship  of  the  dead  (the  species-spirit  of  the  im- 
perial ancestors)  has  absorbed  the  highest  nature- 
god.  The  question  as  to  whether  this  highest  god 
is  the  visible  heaven  itself  or  a  divine  person  stand- 
ing over  and  g(ncrning  it,  cannot  be  answered 
from  the  standpoint  of  the  popular  religion  any 
more  than  the  analogous  question  in  the  case  of  the 
Japanese  goddess  of  the  sun ;  f(^r  the  popular  re- 
ligion, the  visible  heaven  (in  Japan,  the  shining 
sun)  is  the  highest  world-governing  power,  which 
is.  at  the  same  time,  a  spiritual  being,  acting  with 

89 


Religion  and   Historic   Faithi 

understanding  and  will,  the  "  upper  Emperor,"  who 
orders  and  rules  the  world  of  nature  and  of  men. 
The  Chinese  say  that  heaven  does  not  speak  to 
the  individual  man,  but  reveals  itself  in  regular 
unchangeable  order  of  nature  and  in  the  constant 
order  of  states,  which  bear  the  relation  of  exact 
correspondence  to  one  another.  Therefore,  dis- 
turbances of  nature,  such  as  lasting  drought  and 
barrenness,  point  to  corresponding  mistakes  in  the 
national  government.  Just  as  the  order  of  nature 
holds  as  prototype  and  form  for  moral  action,  so 
the  arrangements  of  state  are  considered  to  be  laws 
of  nature.  Plowever  true  the  thought  contained 
herein  may  be,  that  life  in  nature  as  in  man  has 
in  God  its  common  ground,  and  ordering  princi- 
ple, yet  it  does  betray  a  naturalistic  limitation,  that 
the  difference  between  natural  eventuation  and  the 
free  moral  action  of  men  has  not  yet  entered  into 
consciousness ;  what  is  missing  is  the  conception 
of  the  personal  spirit  which  determines  itself  and 
forms  its  own  social  ideals  out  of  its  own  thinking. 
The  Chinaman  does  not  regard  his  government  as 
a  product  of  the  national  will,  whose  development 
is  dependent  upon  free  action,  but  as  a  product  of 
nature  as  necessary  and  as  unchangeable  as,  let  us 
say,  the  state  of  the  bees.  So,  in  his  consideration 
of  history,  every  teleological  viewpoint  is  lacking 
and  with  it  every  thought  of  a  progressive  de- 
velopment which  shall  realize  ideals;  his  glance  is 
ever  turned   upon  the  past   in   which  he  finds  the 

90 


The   Chinese   Rehgion 

models  for  the  present  and  the  confirmatory  ex- 
amples for  the  similar,  elementary  laws  of  human 
life,  particularly  for  the  inevitable  concatenation  of 
guilt  and  fate.  The  advantage  of  such  a  mode  of 
thinking,  for  the  preservation  of  what  is,  is  just  as 
clear  as  the  disadvantage,  the  hindrance  to  indi- 
vidual self-activity  and  free  progress  of  culture. 

As  the  various  higher  and  lower  ofiicials  of  the 
Chinese  Empire  stand  under  the  earthly  Emperor, 
so  under  the  heaven-spirit  range  the  spirits  of  the 
sun,  the  moon  and  the  stars,  the  earth  and  the  four 
world-quarters,  the  forests  and  the  hills,  the  springs 
and  the  rivers,  which  now.  as  spirits  of  a  species, 
rule  over  an  entire  realm,  and  again  as  single  spirits 
are  bound  to  certain  places  and  phenomena. 
Finally,  there  are  the  ancestral  spirits  of  single 
families,  which  are  again  ranked  into  those  of  the 
higher  and  of  the  lower  orders  of  the  people.  As 
with  the  highest  heaven-spirit,  so  the  spirits  of  the 
noble  families  have  fused  with  nature-spirits,  and 
they  with  certain  realms  of  nature  within  their 
provinces. 

This  hierarchy  in  the  spirit-world  corresponds  to 
a  rigidly-regulated  order  of  worship.  Common  to 
them  all  is  the  worship  of  ancestors  by  families 
which  is  celebrated  in  every  house  on  all  festive 
occasions  of  the  family  life;  in  the  hall  ni  the  an- 
cestors, before  the  tablets  bearing  the  names  of  the 
ancestors,  father  and  mother  perform  the  rites,  con- 
sisting of  prayers  and  offerings  of  flowers,  followed 

91 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

by  a  comniuii  meal,  to  which,  in  conformity  with 
ancient  custorti,  the  spirits  are  invited.  Often  their 
unseen  presence  is  rendered  visible  by  selecting  one 
of  the  boys  of  the  house,  dressing  him  in  the  clothes 
of  his  dead  grandfather  and  placing  him  in  the  seat 
of  honor  at  the  table,  so  diat  he,  the  "  dead  boy," 
represents  the  whole  spirit-host  of  the  ancestors  of 
the  house  and  serves,  at  the  same  time,  as  the  visi- 
ble guarantee  of  their  gracious  presence  and  their 
blessed  participation  in  the  fortunes  of  the  house. 
Each  one  has  the  free  right  to  pray  to  the  higher 
spirits  of  heaven  and  earth  and  the  four  quarters 
state  to  perform  the  festival  rites  in  worship  of 
them.  At  the  feasts  of  the  spring  and  the  autumn, 
the  Emperor  makes  sacrifice  in  the  open  air  to  the 
spirits  of  heaven  and  earth  and  the  four  quarters 
of  the  heaven,  and  in  like  fashion,  the  governors 
of  provinces  worship  the  particular  spirits  of  their 
provinces.  The  highest  festival  is  the  festival  of 
the  royal  ancestors,  at  which  the  Emperor,  sur- 
rounded by  the  highest  dignitaries  of  the  realm, 
makes  various  sacrifices  to  the  ancestors  of  his 
house  and  to  all  of  his  predecessors  upon  the  throne, 
whereupon  the  spirits  are  invited  by  music  and  the 
singing  of  songs  to  participate  in  the  sacrificial 
meal.  Here,  too,  the  "  dead  boy  "  appears ;  it  is 
one  of  the  imperial  grandsons,  who  represents,  in 
his  person,  the  highest  ancestral  host  of  the  realm. 
This  is  the  festival  wliich  marks  the  highest  point 
of  Chinese  worship,  and  is  typical  in  character;  no 

92 


The  Chinese  Rehgion 

priesthood  functions  as  mediator  of  supermundane 
powers  or  for  the  winning  of  supermundane  bene- 
fits, but  civic  authorities,  representing  the  Chinese 
nation,  celebrate  by  thanksgiving  and  prayer  the 
continuance  of  the  state,  inextricably  bound  up  with 
the  will  of  the  god ;  it  is  a  state-religion  in  so 
peculiar  a  degree,  as  can  be  found  only  among  the 
Romans,  where  the  state  was  also  not  only  the 
subject,  but,  at  bottom,  the  object  of  religion, 
represented  in  Jupiter  Capitolinus  and  later  in  the 
Caesars.  That  this  lack  of  priesthood,  church  and 
theology,  this  immediate  oneness  of  religion  and 
political  state,  was  very  useful  in  political  regard  is 
best  shown  by  the  history  of  China,  which  owes  the 
five  thousand  year  duration  of  its  government  to 
that  firm  basis.  But  the  other  side  of  this  jxilitical 
usefulness  is  the  lack  of  depth  and  heartiness  in  the 
religion,  a  lack  of  content  of  ideas  which  satisfy 
spirit  and  soul ;  the  Chinese  religion  lacks  not  only 
priests  but  prophets — the  inspired  bearers  of  eternal 
ideals.  The  stability  of  state  and  religion  was  pur- 
chased at  the  price  of  enchainment  to  unchangeable 
popular  forms  and  ceremonies,  at  the  price  of  the 
suppression  of  personal  freedom  and  of  historical 
progress. 

Nevertheless,  China  did  not  lack  wise  teachers, 
who  exercised  a  deep  influence  upon  the  thought 
of  the  people.  Chief  among  them  were  Lao-tsze  and 
Confucius,  both  of  the  sixth  century  B.C.  Lao-tsze, 
born  604  B.C.,  in  the  province  of  Thsu,  was  an  offi- 

93 


Religion  and  Historic   Faiths 

cial  in  the  imperial  house  of  Tsheu ;  at  a  ripe  old 
age,  however,  disgusted  by  the  condition  of  public 
affairs,  he  went  into  voluntary  exile,  but  not  until 
he  had  left  his  work,  ''  Tao-te-King,"  with  his  dis- 
ciples. This  ''  Book  of  Tao "  contains  many  a 
puzzle  for  the  learned  men  of  our  own  day.  What 
does  Tao  mean?  Really  zvay,  but  it  also  means 
much  more.  It  has  been  compared  to  the  Indian 
Brahma  and  to  the  Heraclitean-Stoic  logos;  only 
recently,  Guimet,  the  well-known  Parisian  student 
of  religious  research,  attempted  to  prove,  in  a  lec- 
ture delivered  at  the  Congress  of  the  Historians  of 
Religion  at  Basle  (September,  1904),  that  Lao-tsze's 
Tao  doctrine  originated  in  India  and  that  in  Tao 
are  gathered  up  the  conceptions  of  Brahma  (world- 
spirit).  Karma  (law  of  causation),  Dharma  (law 
of  moral  conduct),  and  Boddhi  (highest  wisdom 
and  sanctity).  I  am  not  going  to  take  up  the  ques- 
tion whether  this  hypothesis  can  be  proved  or  not; 
instead  of  disputing  about  it,  I  hold  it  more  to  the 
purpose  to  impart  to  you  some  literal  extracts  from 
this  mysterious  book  itself;  you  will  certainly  gain 
the  impression  that  the  author  was  a  deep  and  noble 
thinker,  perhaps  too  deep  to  find  true  understand- 
ing among  the  Chinese  people.  I  quote  from  the 
translation  of  the  learned  student  of  Chinese 
language  and  literature,  Reinhold  von  Plaenkner 
(Leipzig,   1870). 

"There  does  exist  an  all-filling,  completely  perfect  being, 
which  existed  before  heaven  and  earth.     It  exists  in  sublime 

94 


The  Chinese  Rehgion 

stillness,  it  is  eternal  and  unchangeable  and  permeates 
unhindered  everywhere.  One  might  look  upon  it  as  the 
creator  of  the  world.  I  do  not  know  its  name,  but  I  like  best 
to  call  it  Tao;  if  I  were  to  give  it  an  attribute,  it  would  be 
that  of  highest  sublimity.  Yes,  sublime  is  that  being,  about 
which  moves  the  all  and  all  in  all;  as  such,  it  must  be  eternal, 
and  as  it  is  eternal,  it  must,  consequently,  be  omnipresent. 
Yes,  Tao  is  sublime,  sublime  is  heaven,  sublime  the  earth, 
sublime,  too,  is  the  ideal  of  men.  Thus  there  are  four  sub- 
lime beings  in  the  universe,  and  without  doubt,  the  ideal  of 
man  is  one  of  them.  For  man  originates  from  earth,  the 
earth  from  heaven,  the  heaven  originated  in  Tao,  and  Tao, 
without  question,  found  its  origin  in  itself.  The  whole  of 
created  nature,  all  its  doing  and  its  working,  is  but  an  emana- 
tion of  Tao — Tao  making  itself  visible.  Although  this  being 
is  all  spirit  and  no  matter,  yet  does  it  compass  all  things 
visible  and  all  beings  are  in  it.  Inconceivable  and  invisible, 
however,  there  dwells  in  it  a  sublime  spirit.  This  spirit  is 
the  highest  and  most  perfect  being,  for  in  it  are  truth,  faith, 
trust.  From  eternity  unto  eternity,  its  glory  will  never 
cease,  for  in  it  is  the  union  of  the  true,  the  good  and  the 
beautiful  in  the  highest  degree  of  perfection.  But  how  can 
I  know  that?  I  know  it  from  itself,  from  Tao.  (Our  con- 
sciousness of  God  then  is  the  inner  revelation  of  the  same 
divine  spirit,  which  reveals  itself  in  the  external  world  as  the 
basis  of  all  reasonable  order  and  harmony.)  For  through 
this  spirit,  the  incomplete  achieves  completion,  perfection, 
fulfillment;  him  who  is  bowed  down,  it  raises  up,  it  strength- 
ens the  weak,  corrects  the  imperfect,  as  it  gives  new  life  to 
barren  vales,  new  life  and  freshness  to  ruins.  There  are, 
naturally,  only  a  few  who  understand  that,  most  men  are 
blinded  by  error.  But  the  wise  man  grasps  Tao,  compasses 
it  in  its  totality  and  places  it  before  the  world  as  a  luminous 
model.  For,  even  though  it  be  not  seen,  it  shines  clearly 
toward  us  everywhere;  and  though  it  stand  not  before  our 
eyes  as  itself,  it  doth  make  itself  known  through  its  revela- 
tions. Though  it  does  not  praise  itself  for  its  works,  yet  its 
works  do  praise  it.  Though  it  does  not  show  itself  in  its 
sublimity,  yet  its  sublimity  surpasses  all  things.     How  could 

95 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

there  be  any  desire  to  dispute  concerning  it?  The  words 
which  those  of  old  had  already  spoken  'That  which  is  imper- 
fect, he  will  perfect,'  they  are  not  vain  words.  No,  we  will 
in  truth  see  perfection  in  light,  when  we  enter  into  and  return 
to  hiiii." 

That  the  knowledge  of  truth  is  mediated  by  the 
dialectic  of  contraries,  that  deep  thought,  which 
governed  the  philosophy  of  Heraclitus,  the  con- 
temporary of  Lao-tsze  is  expressed  in  the  following 
sentences,  which  I  ofifer  according  to  Guimet's 
translation :  "  What  was  it  which  made  all  recog- 
nize the  beautiful  as  beautiful,  it  was  the  ugly;  that 
they  knew  the  good  to  be  good,  it  was  the  bad ;  thus 
being  and  not-being,  the  material  and  the  non- 
material,  the  light  and  the  heavy,  the  high  and  the 
low,  mutually  produce  one  the  other.  Therefore 
will  the  wise  man  make  both,  the  non-material  as 
well  as  the  material,  the  object  of  his  thinking 
knowledge." 

And  now,  something  about  the  moral  principles, 
which  Lao-tsze  logically  deduced  from  his  Tao- 
speculation : 

"  In  all  that  you  do,  obey  the  Tao,  then  will  the  Tao  be  so 
one  with  you,  as  virtue  with  the  virtuous.  How  would  it  be 
possible  to  see  the  Tao  and  yet  be  bad,  to  go  forward  in  one's 
knowledge  and  go  backward  in  one's  morals?  or  conversely, 
how  can  a  man  despise  the  Tao  and  be  good  and  righteous? 
True,  by  industry,  one  can  protect  oneself  against  poverty, 
by  equanimity,  conquer  the  everyday  happenings  of  life; 
but  purity  and  clarity  of  spirit  are  needed  in  order  to  know 
the  right,  the  good  and  the  perfect  in  the  world,  and  to  act 
in  accordance  with  that  knowledge  and  to  be  an  exemplar 

96 


The  Chinese  Rehgion 

of  the  dignity  of  man.  He  who  knows  men  is  clever,  but 
he  who  knows  himself  is  enlightened.  He  who  conquers 
others  has  a  hero's  might,  but  he  who  conquers  himself  has 
strength  of  soul.  He  who  understands  how  to  be  contented, 
he  is  rich,  and  he  who  acts  energetically,  he  has  will-power. 
He  who  does  not  lose  his  Ego,  continues  permanently,  he 
dies  but  he  is  not  extinguished,  he  has  won  eternal  life. 
What  is  of  greater  concern  to  us,  our  reputation  or  our  Ego  ? 
Which  has  greater  value,  wealth  or  Ego?  Are  not  the  con- 
sequences of  the  sins,  which  we  commit  easily  in  the  pursuit 
of  earthly  goods,  much  worse  for  the  salvation  of  our  soul 
than  the  loss  of  all  gathered  treasures?  The  heart  of  the 
wise  man  beats  equally  for  all  humanity.  Toward  him  who 
is  good  and  noble,  I  am  similarly  inclined,  says  the  wise  man, 
and  toward  him  who  stumbles  and  falls,  ought  I  not  also  to 
be  good?  Toward  him  who  is  not  upright  and  honest, 
ought  I  to  act  faithlessly  and  dishonestly?  No,  See,  that 
(being  good  and  faithful  even  to  the  stumbler  and  the  dis- 
honest) is  true  goodness  of  heart  and  true  uprightness  and 
loyalty,  which  emanates  from  heavenly  virtue.  The  wise 
man  regards  and  treats  human  beings  as  his  very  own  chil- 
dren. He  has  three  treasures,  whose  soul  is  filled  with  Tao; 
they  are  love,  which  is  strength  of  soul,  and  contentedncss, 
which  is  greatness  of  soul;  and  humility,  which  never  urges 
itself  to  the  fore.  Those  who  fight  with  the  weapons  of  love, 
they  "win  the  greatest  victory,  the  victory  over  themselves; 
thereby  they  are  protected  from  all  misfortune  and  shielded 
from  all  evil,  hence  they  have  eternal  life.  As  water,  which 
is  the  most  yielding  and  most  movable,  overcomes  that  which 
is  firm  and  strong,  so,  says  the  wise  man,  that  which  is  weak 
and  yielding  overcomes  that  which  is  unbending  and  hard. 
The  wise  man  carries  the  dust  of  the  earth  and  yet  he  is  called 
the  master  of  all  masters,  he  bears  the  sorrows  of  the  world 
and  yet  he  is  called  the  king  of  the  whole  world.  As  the 
powerful  rivers  sway  all  because  they  descend  into  every- 
thing, so  the  wise  man:  if  he  wishes  to  stand  over  all  the 
people,  he  must  go  down  among  them  with  word  and  teach- 
ing; if  he  wishes  to  be  a  guiding  light  for  them  by  wisdom 
and  strength  of  spirit,  then  the  best  method  is  to  place  his 

97 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

own  person  in  the  background.  Whoever  wishes  to  main- 
tain his  superiority  over  the  people,  must  never  let  them 
feel  any  kind  of  pressure,  must  never  injure  or  enslave  them, 
but  must  do  all  manner  of  good  to  them.  Then  will  the 
world  acclaim  him,  love  and  honor  him,  and,  since  he  has 
given  no  occasion  for  discontent  and  quarrel,  the  world  will 
live  in  peace  and  there  will  not  be  combat  or  discontent  any- 
where on  earth. " 

I  have  said  that  the  teaching  of  Lao-tsze  was  too 
high,  too  ideal  for  the  "  common  sense "  of  the 
Chinese  which  was  directed  only  to  what  was  use- 
ful. Lao-tsze  found  but  a  small  circle  of  adherents 
and  what  is  worse,  within  this  circle,  there  was  so 
little  understanding  of  his  depth,  that,  in  the  course 
of  time,  it  became  perverted  into  the  nonsense  of  a 
spiritless  superstition  and  crude  witchcraft,  so  that 
the  Tao  sect  to-day  is  the  least  respected  of  any 
among  cultured  Chinese. 

Lao-tsze's  younger  contemporary,  Confucius,  had 
much  better  fortune.  Born  551  B.C.,  in  the  prov- 
ince of  Lu,  he  began  his  teaching  as  a  young  man 
of  twenty-two.  He  led  an  unsettled  life,  now  pat- 
ronized by  the  duke  of  his  province,  even  acting  as 
his  minister  at  one  time,  then,  falling  from  favor 
because  of  his  loyalty  to  his  convictions,  he  was 
exiled  and  wandered  about  homelessly  for  many 
years,  living  on  the  benevolence  of  his  friends. 
Finally,  at  the  end  of  his  long  life,  he  was  recalled 
with  honors,  but  accepted  no  new  office,  living 
entirely  for  his  studies  until  his  death  in  478. 
Confucius  desired  to  teach  nothing  new,  but  only  to 

98 


The  Chinese  Religion 

transmit  the  pure  and  uncurtailed  traditions  of  the 
ancients,  which  are  unchangeable,  because  of  their 
heavenly  origin.  He  was  more  a  teacher  of  morals 
and  statecraft,  more  a  writer  and  a  historian  than 
a  prophet  or  founder  of  a  religion.  Religiously 
cold,  even  to  skepticism,  he  had  no  high  regard  for 
prayer  and  did  not  meddle  with  transcendental 
questions.  Nevertheless,  he  was  a  noble  ethical 
thinker,  who,  in  some  respects,  reminds  us  of  our 
own  Kant,  both  in  that  which  he  said  and  in  that 
which  he  left  unsaid.  He  never  expressed  himself 
polemically  against  the  beliefs  or  the  customs  of  his 
people ;  his  nature  was  far  too  conservative  for  that. 
His  heart,  however,  was  not  with  the  religious  tra- 
ditions; his  interest  was  limited  to  the  moral 
principles. 

Concerning  spirits,  he  said :  "  Honor  them  with 
a  sense  of  piety,  but  hold  yourself  aloof  from 
them."  When  he  was  asked  whether  they  should 
be  worshipped  with  sacrifices,  and  whether  they 
knew  of  or  benefitted  by  the  sacrifices,  he  an- 
swered :  "  Honor  the  spirits  of  thy  ancestors,  and 
act  as  though  they  were  the  ever-present  witnesses 
of  thy  actions,  but  seek  to  know  nothing  further 
concerning  them."  When  asked  concerning  things 
after  death,  he  gave  this  opinion :  "  As  long  as  you 
do  not  know  life,  how  can  you  know  anything  con- 
cerning death  ?  "  With  all  that,  he  was  not  merely 
a  moralist,  but  his  ethics  was  based  upon  a  religious 
foundation,  somewhat  in  the  sense  of  Fichte's  faith 

99 


Religion  and   Historic   Faiths 

in  the  moral  world-order.  Human  life.  Confucius 
taught,  should  be  regulated  according  to  the  un- 
changeable, fixed  order  of  natural  and  social  ex- 
istence laid  down  by  heaven;  this  "decree"  of 
heaven,  which  apportions  to  each  his  duties  and  his 
fate,  should  be  respected  by  the  wise  man;  obedi- 
ently and  humbly,  he  should  submit  thereto  and 
never  murmur  against  heaven.  Confucius  believed 
in  a  governing  righteousness  in  the  world-course, 
which,  even  if  not  without  exceptions  in  the  cases 
of  individuals,  does  in  the  main  reward  the  good 
and  punish  the  evil.  Whether  that  providence  was 
to  be  thought  a  personal  one  or  not,  he  leaves  un- 
decided ;  he  himself  preferred  the  impersonal  ex- 
pression Tien  (heaven)  to  the  personal  one, 
"  Shang-ti."  As  a  true  son  of  his  nation,  he  con- 
sidered respectful  submission  to  parents,  ancestors 
and  rulers  in  all  the  circumstances  of  life,  to  be  the 
highest  virtue.  Yet  he  demanded  of  the  rulers  that 
they  set  the  example  of  virtue,  that  they  win  the 
confidence  of  their  people  and  not  burden  them 
unduly,  that  they  seek  to  better  them  more  by  in- 
struction than  by  punishment.  As  the  conception 
of  what  is  morally  right  he  designated  the  golden 
rule  of  reciprocity :  "  What  you  do  not  wish  that 
another  do  unto  you,  do  not  unto  others."  He 
acknowledged  humbly  that  there  were  four  things 
which  he  had  never  achieved  entirely:  to  serve  his 
father  as  he  would  have  his  son  serve  him ;  to  serve 
the  prince  as  he  would  have  his  minister  serve  him ; 

100 


The  Chinese  Rehgion 

to  serve  his  older  brother  as  he  would  have  his 
younger  brother  serve  him ;  and  to  treat  his  friend 
as  he  would  have  his  friend  treat  him.  In  addition 
to  the  principle  of  Lao-tsze,  that  wrongdoing  should 
he  returned  by  good,  Confucius  thought :  "  Where- 
with shall,  then,  good  be  repaid?  Rather,  return 
justice  for  injustice,  and  good  for  good." 

It  is  conceivable  that  soon  after  his  death,  Con- 
fucius was  worshipped  by  the  Chinese  as  their  high- 
est authority,  as  the  sum-total  of  wisdom  and  the 
good  genius  of  their  country.  Five  classical  works, 
which  form  the  permanent  basis  of  Chinese  science 
and  world-view,  in  part,  he  collected  and  edited, 
and  in  part  he  wrote.  They  are,  "  Yih-king,"  the 
book  of  wisdom ;  "  Shu-king,"  the  book  of  history, 
"Shi-king,"  the  book  of  songs;  "Le-ke,"  the  book  of 
religious  and  worldly  customs,  and  "  Chun  Tsew," 
the  book  of  the  annals  of  the  Lu  district.  This 
last  work  is  about  his  own  native  place,  and  was 
written  by  himself.  It  can  no  longer  be  said  how 
far  he  altered  the  traditional  material,  or  of  how 
much  of  it  he  made  use;  this  much  is  certain,  that 
the  classical  books,  in  the  form  in  which  he  left  them, 
are  the  expression  of  the  Chinese  ideal,  in  some 
measure,  as  it  was  handed  down  to  him  and  more 
clearly  defined  by  him.  and  that  he  impressed  it  so 
thoroughly  upon  his  people  that  their  thought  and 
action  to-day  is  governed  by  it.  The  most  im- 
portant of  his  successors  was  Meng^se  (371—288 
B.C.),  who  applied  the  teachings  of  Confucius  to 

lOI 


Religion  and   Historic  Faiths 

practical    governmental    life    with    cleverness    and 
great  courage. 

Finally,  it  must  be  noted  that  in  the  year  65  a.d., 
under  the  Emperor  Mingti,  Buddhism  w^as  brought 
to  China  by  Indian  missionaries ;  between  the  fourth 
and  the  sixth  centuries,  it  gained  the  controlling 
position,  but  in  such  fashion  that  Taoism  and 
Confucianism  remained  alongside  of  it,  and  forced 
Buddhism  to  accommodate  itself,  in  a  measure,  to 
them.  In  China,  these  three  religions  are  not 
strictly  differentiated ;  a  Chinaman  can  belong  to 
all  three  at  the  same  time,  and,  in  fact,  he  actually 
does  so,  by  following  the  principles  of  Confucius  in 
the  acts  of  his  daily  life,  by  employing  the  magic 
means  of  Taoism  in  extraordinary  cases,  while 
for  things  concerning  death  and  the  beyond,  he 
turns  to  a  priest  of  one  of  the  ten  Buddhistic  sects 
for  its  consolations.  Such  religious  toleration 
may  be  admired,  but  one  may  be  permitted  to  ask 
the  question  whether  that  very  toleration  does  not 
betray  the  unsatisfactoriness  of  each  of  these  re- 
ligions? And,  whether  they  are  not  destined  to 
be  set  aside  for  a  higher  religion? 


102 


VI 


THE    EGYPTIAN    RELIGION 


As  FAR  back  as  the  ancients,  Egypt  was  the  land 
of  riddles  and  it  has  remained  so  to  this  day.  The 
civilization  of  the  Egyptians  is  of  so  remarkable 
a  nature  that  it  is  not  easy  for  us  to  understand 
it;  it  unites,  seemingly  without  mediation,  direct 
opposites.  Alongside  of  one  another,  we  find  the 
awkward  hieroglyphic  picture-signs  and  a  per- 
fected alphabet  script ;  in  the  crafts,  the  most  an- 
tiquated apparatus  of  the  Stone  Age  alongside  of 
highly-developed  metal-work.  So,  too,  the  Egyp- 
tian religion  is  a  wondrous  mixture  of  crude, 
antique  legends  and  customs  with  high  thought 
almost  touching  monotheism.  Everywhere  we  find 
a  tenacious  conservatism  alongside  of  a  hearty, 
progressive  development  of  civilization.  For  this 
reason,  the  Egyptian  is  a  particularly  instructive 
example  of  the  evolution  of  religion  in  its  early 
stages. 

Before  anything  else,  due  regard  must  be  had 
for  the  worship  of  animals,  a  fact  which  struck 
the  ancients  as  a  peculiarity  of  this  relig"ion.  Every 
district  had  its  own  peculiar  sacred  animal :  every 
animal  of  the  species  was  sacred  for  the  inliabi- 

103 


Religion  and  Historic   Faiths 

tants  of  the  district  and  one  specimen  was  cared  for 
in  the  temple  and  worshipped.  The  bull  Apis,  at 
Memphis  as  the  incarnation  of  the  local  god  Ptah, 
tlie  bull  Mnevis  at  Heliopolis  (local-cult  of  the 
sun-god  Ra),  and  the  ram  at  Mendes  enjoyed  the 
distinction  of  general  worship ;  these  cults,  origin- 
ally local,  became  general  in  the  unified  empire. 
In  other  places  the  following  animals  were  wor- 
shipped as  sacred :  cat,  dog,  monkey,  crocodile, 
ranny,  sparrow-hawk,  ibis,  snake,  frog,  scarab 
(beetle)  and  the  like.  The  temple  inscriptions  of  the 
middle  epoch  of  the  empire  give  no  information 
about  this  worship  of  animals ;  this  fact  gave  rise 
to  the  conclusion  tliat  the  Egyptian  worship  of 
animals  was  not  original  but  a  result  of  the  degen- 
eration of  the  religi(m  in  a  later  period.  But 
Manetho,  the  historian,  expressly  testifies  to  its 
existence  at  the  time  of  the  Second  Dynasty  (about 
3000  B.C.)  and  the  complete  or  semi-zoomorphic 
representation  of  the  gods  throughout  corroborate 
him;  thus,  Horus  was  sometimes  a  sparrow-hawk, 
and  sometimes  a  man  with  the  head  of  a  sparrow- 
hawk  ;  Hathor  was  a  woman  with  a  cow's  head 
and  horns;  Osiris,  a  man  with  the  head  of  a  bull 
or  ibis;  Khem  and  Amen  with  a  ram's  head. 

The  complete  zoomorphic  representation  was  the 
older  of  the  two,  for  the  semi-humanization  did 
not  begin  until  the  Twelfth  Dynasty.  Hence,  it  may 
safely  be  concluded,  that  the  Egyptian  gods  were 
originally  represented  as  animals.     But  that  can- 

104 


The   Egyptian   Religion 

not  possibly  be  explained  as  some  priestly  specula- 
tion which  simply  regarded  the  animals  as  "  sym- 
bols of  the  nature-powers,"  and  "  pantheistic  forms 
of  the  manifestation  of  the  original  god."  We 
ought  never  to  forget  that  symbolism  is  never  a 
factor  in  the  oldest  religions,  but  that  there  every- 
thing was  meant  most  really;  not  until  a  much 
later  stage  of  rationalistic  reflection  does  the  sym- 
bolical interpretation  of  customs  appear,  and  then 
they  have  either  lost  sanction  or  their  original 
meaning  is  no  longer  understood. 

What  are  we  to  regard  as  the  original  sense  of 
the  Egyptian  animal-gods?  The  simplest  answer 
to  this  question  is,  without  doubt,  a  comparison  to 
the  "  totemism  "  of  many  Indian  and  negro  tribes, 
that  is,  with  the  widespread  custom  according  to 
which  single  social  groups  believed  their  peculiarity 
and  difference  from  others  to  have  been  estab- 
lished by  descent  from  a  certain  species  of  animal, 
and  that  species-spirit,  they  worshipped  as  their 
tribal-god  (their  "totem").  Tn  Kgypt.  als<i.  ani- 
mal-worship belonged,  at  first,  to  single  districts  of 
the  country,  which,  even  after  political  alliance, 
through  the  unification  of  the  empire,  maintained 
their  religious  separation,  one  from  the  other,  by 
their  attitude  to  the  same  animal,  so  that  the  animal 
held  sacred  in  one  district  would  be  regarded  as 
profane  in  the  adjacent  district  and  vice  versa.  In 
later  times,  it  was  not  a  rare  occurrence  that  the 
injuring  of  the  sacred  animal  of  one  district,  by  the 

105 


Religion  and   Historic   Faiths 

people  of  the  next  district,  led  to  bloody  combat. 
How  would  such  a  state  of  affairs  be  thinkable  if 
the  whole  view  were  nothing  more  than  the  sym- 
bolic poetizing  of  priestly  speculation?  The  only 
explanation  is  that  of  a  survival  of  early  totemistic 
faith. 

But  these  animal-gods,  which  we  may  regard  as 
the  oldest,  stand  alongside  the  higher  great  gods  of 
that  ])hase  of  the  Egyptian  religion  with  which  we 
are  acquainted,  and  concerning  which  the  temple 
inscriptions  give  us  information.  In  the  first  in- 
stance, these  gods  were  personified  nature-powers: 
gods  of  the  sun  and  the  moon,  of  heaven,  earth, 
the  underworld,  and  the  Nile;  to  these  must  then  be 
added  the  genies  of  fruitfulness  and  of  growth,  of 
order,  righteousness,  trutli,  knowledge,  and  the  like. 
I  have  said  that  these  deities  were  represented  as 
half-animals  in  the  worship-pictures;  but,  on  the 
other  hand,  it  must  be  remembered,  as  is  clearly 
shown  by  the  myths  and  the  hymns,  that  they  are 
thought  of  as  human,  acting  persons;  so  it  seems 
as  though  this  worship  of  gods  parallels  the  animal- 
worship,  as  though  they  were  two  religions,  differ- 
ing entirely  in  their  nature  and  their  origin,  and 
neither  one  to  be  explained  by  the  other.  Mean- 
while, the  question  arises :  Must  there  not  have  been 
some  sort  of  connection  between  them,  which  we  do 
not  know,  merely  because  it  took  place  in  some  pre- 
historic period?  We  must  leave  that  problem  to 
later  research-students. 

io6 


The   Egyptian  Religion 

In  any  event,  the  higli  gods  were  originally 
local  gods  too,  and  by  the  alliance  of  the  single 
districts  into  a  united  empire  they  were  brought  into 
relation  to  one  another.  The  oft-recurring  con- 
nection of  three  gods  into  the  family  group,  father, 
mother  and  son,  is  very  ancient ;  such  groups  are : 
Osiris,  Isis  and  Horus  at  Abydos;  Ptah,  Scchet, 
and  Imhotep  at  Memphis;  Amen,  Maut,  and 
Chonsu  at  Thebes.  Then,  too,  various  gods  from 
different  localities  were  fused  into  one  and  taken 
thus  into  the  religion  of  the  realm,  as,  for  example, 
Amen  Ra,  Ra-Harmachis,  Ptah-Sokar-Osiris  and 
others.  Ra  was  the  sun-god  of  Heliopolis,  whom 
the  kings  of  the  Fifth  Dynasty  (about  2500  B.C.) 
elevated  to  his  central  position  in  the  religion  of 
the  realm ;  about  this  central  god,  by  the  inter- 
weaving of  political  motives  and  priestly  specula- 
tion, there  developed  a  sun-theology,  which  sought 
to  transform  most  of  the  local  gods  into  sun-gods 
by  gradual  assimilation  with  Ra.  The  myths  tell 
of  Ra  that  he  was  originally  a  king  who  ruled  in 
some  golden  age,  but  that  when  he  became  old  and 
feeble,  men  grew  overbearing  and  revolted  against 
him;  through  the  goddess  Ilathor,  he  made  bloody 
havoc  of  the  rebels,  but  saved  them  from  entire 
destruction.  I*'inally,  he  grew  tired  of  rulership 
over  the  thankless  and  determined  to  reside  only  in 
heaven  and  establish  a  new  world-order. 

May  not  this  myth  contain  a  reminiscence  of  the 
religious-historical    transformation,    by    which    the 

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Religion  and   Historic  Faiths 

earthly  trilxil-god  of  one  of  the  local  ancestor-wor- 
ships had  been  elevated  to  the  position  of  heavenly 
sun-god  at  the  liead  of  the  national  pantheon?  I 
suggest  the  question,  merely,  and  leave  the  answer 
to  the  history  of  comparative  religions  (recall  the 
sun-gods  of  Japan  and  Peru).  Another  myth 
describes  Ra's  journey  across  the  heavens  in  his 
sun-bark,  his  combat  with  tlie  dragon  Apep,  his 
defeat  and  descent  into  the  underworld,  his  return 
through  the  land  of  darkness,  in  which  there  are 
twelve  dangerous  portals  which  must  be  passed 
through  in  the  twelve  hours  of  the  night,  and  his 
return  into  the  world  of  daylight.  We  will  meet 
this  myth  again  when  we  discuss  the  ideas  of  the 
fate  of  souls  in  the  world  beyond. 

Osiris  is  usually  called  the  sun-god  of  Abydos, 
but,  in  the  seconil  volume  of  the  "  Golden  Bough." 
Frazer  has  proved,  on  satisfying  grounds,  that  it 
was  not  a  sun-god  originally,  but  rather  a  god  of 
vegetation,  of  the  fruitful  earth,  and  of  the  under- 
world. The  legend  is  well  known  in  which  Osiris 
is  murdered  by  his  inimical  brother  Set,  of  the 
plaint  of  his  wife  and  sister,  Isis,  who  sought  his 
corpse,  antl  when  she  found  the  pieces  at  last  fitted 
them  together,  giving  them  new  life,  whereupon 
Osiris  became  the  ruler  in  the  realms  of  the  dead, 
while,  upon  earth,  his  son,  Horus,  avenged  his 
death,  first  by  a  combat  with  Set,  and  then,  by  bring- 
ing the  matter  before  the  judgment  seat  of  the  gods, 
who,  after  a  formal  trial,  declared  Set  to  be  con- 

io8 


The   Egyptian   Religion 

quered,  Osiris  to  be  king  of  the  dead,  and  Horus 
to  be  king  of  the  living;  and  his  successors  became 
the  kings  of  Egypt.  This  myth,  of  the  dying  and 
reviving  god,  reaches  back  into  the  farthest  antiq- 
uity, and  was  a  common  possession  of  the  religions 
of  Asia  Minor,  Greece  and  Egypt;  naturally,  its 
root  is  the  annual  experience  of  the  death  of  nature 
in  Autumn  and  its  rebirth  in  the  Spring.  The 
myth  which  grew  out  of  it  presents  dramatically 
not  only  the  change  of  nature-life  but  also  the 
fate  of  men  with  its  opposites  of  life  and  death,  joy 
and  sorrow,  fear  and  Impc;  that  myth  was  richer 
in  soulful  motives  and  (premonitions  than  others, 
and,  therefore,  in  the  course  of  time,  it  became  the 
basis  of  the  mystery-cults,  which  played  such  an 
important  part  in  the  history  of  religion. 

The  god  of  Memphis,  Ptah.  owes  the  general 
worship  given  to  him  solely  to  the  political  im- 
portance of  Memphis,  as  the  capital  of  the  ancient 
empire.  In  the  later  priestly  theology,  he  became  a 
sun-god  and  was  elevated  to  the  position  of  world- 
creator  (the  Greeks  compared  him  to  their  IIc- 
phjestus)  but,  originally,  he  was  no  more  than  a 
god  of  earthly  fruitfulness;  the  bull,  Apis,  who  was 
lodged  next  to  the  Ptah-tcmple,  was  looked  upon 
as  his  son  or  "  .second  life,"  which  means  as  much 
as  to  say  that  the  god  Ptah  was.  in  the  beginning, 
no  more  than  the  totemistic  bull-god  of  Memphis. 

Amen,  the  local  god  of  Thebes  in  UpfX"r  I*^g>'pt, 
was  originally  a  god  of  fruitfulness.  of  the  earth, 

109 


Religion  and   Historic  Faiths 

and  of  the  dead;  that  is,  he  was  to  Upper  Egypt 
what  Osiris  was  to  Lower  Egypt.  In  tlie  new 
empire,  liowever,  vvliose  first  dynasties  came  from 
Thebes,  Amen  was  fused  for  political  reasons  with 
the  former  highest  god  of  the  empire,  Ra,  and  they 
became  one  divine  person;  this  Amen-Ra  was  from 
that  time  on  the  highest  god  of  Egypt,  the  sun-god 
par  excellence,  who  was  extolled  as  the  creator  and 
the  preserver  of  the  whole  world.  In  the  eleva- 
tion of  this  god  to  heavenly  kingsliip,  the  counter- 
part of  tlie  kingship  on  earth,  brought  about  as 
much  by  poHtical  motives  as  religious  speculation, 
Egyptian  tlieology  approaches  monotheism.  Con- 
cerning Amen-Ra,  one  hymn,  which  I  take  from 
Erman's  translation  (Die  Aegyptische  Religion, 
S.  02.),  reads  as  follows: 

"He  it  is,  who  has  made  all,  the  one  with  many  hands. 
He  commanded  and  the  gods  came  into  being;  he  is  the 
father  of  the  gods,  he  it  is,  who  made  men  and  created  the 
animals.  Men  came  forth  out  of  his  eyes  and  gods  out  of  his 
mouth.  He  it  is.  who  creates  pasture  for  the  herds  and  the 
fruit-tree  for  men,  who  creates  nourishment  for  the  fish  in 
the  river  and  the  birds  beneath  the  heavens.  For  his  sake,  the 
Nile  comes,  and  when  he,  the  much-beloved  comes,  men  live. 
And  the  head  of  the  gods  is  friendly  of  heart,  when  he  is 
called  upon.  He  protects  the  timid  against  the  bold.  There- 
fore do  all  things,  as  far  as  the  heavens  and  the  earth  extend, 
love  and  worship  him.  The  gods  bow  before  his  majesty  and 
magnify  their  creator;  they  rejoice  when  their  creator  ap- 
proaches. Praise  thee,  says  every  animal;  praise  thee, 
says  every  desert.  Thy  beauty  conquers  every  heart,  the 
love  of  thee  paralyzes  arms  and  hands,  the  heart  forgets  be- 
cause the  eye  looks  after  thee.     He  is  the  living  lamp,  which 

110 


The   Egyptian   Religion 

rises  out  of  the  heavenly  ocean.  In  him,  do  the  oppressed  set 
their  trust,  for  he  is  the  Vizier,  who  will  not  suffer  himself 
to  be  bribed." 

King  Aiiienoi)his  IV.  (1400  B.C.)  made  one 
more  step  toward  complete  monotheism  by  elevating 
Aton  to  the  position  of  sole  god.  and  attempting 
to  suppress  the  worshij)  of  all  the  other  gods,  par- 
ticularly that  of  Amcn-Ra.  Aton  really  means  the 
sun-pane,  but  it  was  intended  merely  as  the  form 
in  which  the  living  personal  god  behind  it  mani- 
fested himself.  A  powerful  impression  of  the 
depth  and  heartiness  of  this  belief  in  God  is  afforded 
by  the  following  hymn  (Erman,  S.  68): 

"  How  much  there  is  which  thou  hast  made.  Thou  didst 
create  the  earth  according  to  thy  wish,  thou  alone,  with  men 
and  with  all  animals.  The  foreijjn  lands  of  Syria  and  Ethi- 
opia and  the  land  of  Egypt — each  one  didst  thou  set  in  its 
place  and  create  what  it  had  need  of;  each  one  has  his 
own  possession  and  the  duration  of  his  life  was  reckoned. 
Their  tongues  are  separated  by  their  languages  and  their  ex- 
ternals according  to  their  color;  Differentiator,  thou  didst 
differentiate  the  peoples.  Thou  didst  create  the  Xilc  in  the 
depth  and  dost  lead  him  hither  at  thy  pleasure  to  give  nour- 
ishment to  men.  Thou  didst  create  the  life-nourishment  of 
all  distant  lands  and  didst  set  a  Nile  in  heaven  that  it  may 
flow  down  to  them ;  he  forms  waves  upon  the  mountains  like 
an  ocean  and  moistens  their  fields.  How  beautiful  are  thy 
decrees,  thou  lord  of  eternity.  The  Nile  of  heaven  diilst  thou 
give  over  to  the  strange  peoples  and  the  animals  of  the  de.sert. 
but  the  Nile  from  the  depth  comes  for  Egvpt.  Thou  didst 
create  the  seasons,  in  onier  to  preserve  all  thy  creatures,  the 
winter  to  cool  them  and  the  glow  that  they  may  taste  thee. 
The  distant  heaven  thou  didst  create  in  order  to  shine  upon 
it,  in  order  to  see  all  thy  creatures,  alone  and  rising  in  thy 

III 


Religion  and   Historic  Faiths 

form  as  living  sun,  shining  forth,  radiant,  departing  and  re- 
turning. Thou  didst  create  the  earth  for  them,  who  in  thee 
alone  had  their  origin,  cities  and  tribes,  roads  and  streams. 
The  eyes  of  all  see  thee  before  them,  when  thou  art  the  sun 
of  day  over  the  earth." 

It  is  astonishing  to  see  with  what  freedom  the 
poet  of  this  hymn  rises  above  tlie  limitations  of  the 
popular  national  religion  in  that  he  recognizes  that 
the  one  god  had  created  the  various  peoples,  each 
with  its  own  peculiarity,  and  governs  strangers  as 
well  as  Egyptians  with  like  paternal  care.  These 
are  the  thoughts  of  a  king,  an  enlightened  spirit, 
who  sought  to  burst  the  narrow  bounds  of  tradi- 
tion, of  ceremonial,  and  of  the  guardianship  of 
priests,  and  sought  to  free  himself  and  his  people 
so  as  to  enter  into  a  path  of  freer  human  thinking 
and  habit.  'Among  those  about  him,  and  even 
among  the  priests,  he  met  with  some  success  and 
gained  adherents;  nevertheless,  his  bold  attempt  at 
reformation  failed,  for  his  all-too-stormy  march 
met  an  insurmountable  obstacle  in  the  obtuseness  of 
the  masses  and  the  reaction  of  the  mighty  priesthood 
of  Amen-Ra.  Under  the  successors  of  Amenophis 
IV,  these  priests  succeeded  in  dethroning  the  here- 
tical dynasty,  and  were  able  to  eradicate  even  the 
name  of  the  hated  innovator  and  of  his  all-one  god, 
Aton,  so  thoroughly  from  the  historic  monuments 
of  the  great  sanctuaries  that  it  was  not  until  the 
excavation  of  the  ruins  of  Tel-el-Amarna,  the  resi- 
dence of  the  heretic,   in   our  own  day,   that  this 

112 


The  Egyptian   Religion 

remarkable  episode  in  the  history  of  the  Egyptian 
rehgion  came  to  light  again. 

Under  the  kings  of  the  new  dynasty,  Rameses 
II  and  III  (13th  century  B.C.),  the  kings  sought  to 
prop  their  political  power  by  making  close  alliance 
with  the  ruling  priesthood;  it  was  at  this  time 
that  the  national  polytheism  of  Egypt  reached  its 
height.  All  over  the  land,  the  old  sanctuaries  most 
highly  regarded  were  richly  finished  and  sumptu- 
ously fitted  up.  The  ecclesiastical  restoration  gave 
official  protection  to  all  of  the  old  popular  super- 
stitions, particularly  animal  worship,  and  even  to 
the  great  mass  of  formula!  for  exorcism  and  magic. 
Simultaneously,  the  beginnings  of  decay  appeared 
in  a  syncretism  which  tended  toward  the  disintegra- 
tion of  the  many  popular  gods  by  uniting  them 
into  one  pantheistic  all-deity.  With  all  these 
changes,  only  one  thing  remained  constant — the 
belief  in  the  divinity  of  the  kings  as  the  sons  of  the 
sun-god.  Even  the  Ptolmeies,  the  highly  cultured 
Greek  successors  to  the  throne  of  the  Pharaohs, 
did  not  disdain  to  make  use  of  this.  Attempts 
have  been  made  to  explain  this  faith  as  Byzantin- 
ism,  but  that  is  hardly  correct.  How  could  it 
have  been  rooted  so  deeply  in  popular  conscious- 
ness and  maintained  itself  so  well?  This  belief 
was  rather  a  survival  of  that  early  belief  in  the 
divine  descent  of  the  ruling  race  as  the  representa- 
tive of  the  entire  people,  a  belief  which  we  meet 
everywhere   in   gray   antiquity.       For   those   tribes 


Religion  and   Historic  Faiths 

attributed  to  themselves  universally  a  blood  rela- 
tionship with  the  tribal  deity.  Therefore,  what 
was  originally  considered  to  be  true  of  the  tribe 
collectively  was  later  narrowed  into  the  belief  of  the 
sj)ecial  divinity  of  the  kings,  and  finally  of  the 
Roman  Emperor  as  the  last  heir  of  the  ancient 
national  religions. 

Finally,  there  is  the  third  point  in  which  the 
Egyptian  religion  is  distinguished. — the  worship 
of  the  dead.  A  number  of  differing  views  are  met 
here,  one  alongside  the  other,  and  at  the  outset  we 
must  forego  every  attempt  either  to  mediate  or  to 
harmonize  one  with  the  other.  According  to  the 
oldest  view,  the  soul  of  the  deceased  peri)etually 
remains  attached  to  the  body,  hence  the  Egyptian 
care  for  the  preservation  of  the  corpse  by  embalm- 
ing, and  the  protection  of  the  same  in  a  safe  tomb. 
The  "  dwellings  for  eternity."  as  the  tombs  were 
called,  formed  extended  cities  of  the  dead,  usually 
located  to  the  west  of  the  cities  of  the  living.  The 
kings  usefl.  as  their  burial  places,  the  colossal  pyra- 
mids, while  the  nol)lcs  and  the  wealthy  used  rock 
caverns.  In  every  instance,  there  was  a  securely- 
locked  grave  chamber  before  which  there  was  an 
ante-room  with  a  sacrificial  table  for  the  worship 
of  the  dead.  The  tomb  equipment  for  the  use  of 
the  soul  beyond  consisted  of  water  jugs,  chairs, 
arms,  books  on  magic,  a  little  boat  with  a  crew, 
and  statuettes  of  male  and  female  servants ;  many 
pictures  and   inscriptions  concerning   the  deeds   of 

114 


The   Egyptian   Religion 

the  dead  adorned  the  tuinbs  of  the  kings,  and  tliese 
are  the  principal  source  of  our  knowledge  of  the 
history  of  Egypt.  It  was  the  duty  of  the  living  to 
bring  gifts  for  the  soul  to  the  grave,  and  to  repeat 
formulae  on  all  feast  days ;  the  magic  power  of  the 
formulae  was  supposed  to  bring  the  joys  of  earth 
to  the  soul  in  the  world  beyond.  There  were  also 
payments  made  for  the  regular  saying  of  masses 
for  the  dead  by  the  priests.  This  was  customary 
among  the  upper  classes.  All  of  this  is  based  on 
the  presupposition  that  the  spirit  of  the  deceased, 
his  Ka,  lives  on  in  the  grave.  "  the  house  of  the  Ka," 
and  depends  on  the  preservation  of  his  body,  which 
requires  such  nourishment  as  sacrificial  gifts  and 
magic  formulae. 

There  is  another  view,  that  the  soul,  Ba,  moves 
like  a  bird,  free  from  the  body  which  it  visits  from 
time  to  time  in  the  grave,  but  it  can  also  soar  to 
heaven  above  and  change  into  various  beings  at 
pleasure.  So.  for  example,  the  soul  may  embody 
itself  in  snakes  or  i)lants — this  is  the  animistic  basis 
of  all  the  theories  of  the  transmigration  of  the 
soul. 

Different,  again,  is  the  view  of  the  journey  of  the 
soul  to  the  world  beyond  which  it  undertakes  with 
the  sun-god,  Ra.  in  his  night-ship  through  the  un- 
derworld. This  is  divided  into  twelve  stations. 
one  for  each  of  the  twelve  hours  of  the  night,  and 
each  of  these  is  guarded  by  a  fearful  monster 
such  as  the  wicked  dragon  Apep  (Apophis).     By 

"5 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

magpie  fornniKT  alone  arc  tliese  monsters  rendered 
harmless,  and  this  purpose  is  served  by  the  books 
of  magic  which  are  always  buried  with  the  dead. 
The  world  beyond  is  looked  upon  throughout  as  a 
dark  land  to  the  west,  which,  from  time  to  time 
during  the  nocturnal  journey  of  Ra,  becomes 
illumined  for  the  refreshment  of  the  soul.  More 
pleasant  is  the  notion  of  the  paradise  (Earn  or 
Aalu)  of  Osiris,  which  lies  in  the  north  or  the  cast, 
and  is  like  the  blissful  fields  of  the  Greek  Elysium. 
There,  the  souls  lead  a  pleasant  life,  a  continuation 
of  their  earthly  occupations  and  joys.  But  beyond 
this  rises  religious  hope  to  the  thought  of  a  blissful 
life  for  the  transfigured  soul  which,  having  become 
one  with  Osiris,  will  participate  in  his  divine  being 
or  shine  as  a  star  in  heaven.  **  As  certainly  as 
Osiris  lives,  he  too  will  live.  As  certainly  as  Osiris 
will  not  be  destroyed,  he  too  will  not  be  destroyed." 
The  gods  call  out  to  the  soul :  **  Thy  transfigured 
spirit  and  thy  power  come  to  thee  as  to  the  god,  the 
representative  of  Osiris.  Thy  soul  is  in  thee  and 
thy  power  behind  thee.  Lift  thyself  up  and  arise." 
To  him  who  is  thus  awakened,  they  stretch  out  a 
ladder  for  the  ascent  to  heaven :  '*  The  gate  of 
heaven  is  open  for  thee  and  the  massive  bolts  shot 
back.  Thou  findcst  Ra  standing  there,  he  takes 
thee  by  the  hand  and  leads  thee  to  the  throne  of 
Osiris,  so  that  thou  mayest  rule  over  the  transfig- 
ured. The  servants  of  the  god  stand  before  thee 
and  call  out,  Come,  thou  god,  come,  thou  possessor 

ii6 


The   Egyptian   Religion 

of  the  throne  of  Osiris.  Now  standest  thou  tliere 
protected,  equipped  as  a  gad,  clothed  with  the  form 
of  Osiris,  and  thou  dost  wliat  he  (hd  do  among  the 
transfigured    and    tlie    indestructible."       (Erman, 

P-  98.) 

Tliis  bliss,  however,  is  participated  in  by  those 
alone  who  have  passed  through  the  judgment  of  the 
dead  before  the  judgment  throne  of  Osiris.  The 
judgment  scene  has  been  preserved  for  us  in  a  pic- 
ture :  the  goddess  of  truth  leads  a  woman  into  the 
hall  of  judgment,  at  the  other  end  of  which  Osiris 
sits  upon  his  throne  as  judge  of  the  dead ;  above,  in 
the  background,  are  the  forty-two  witnesses  of  the 
trial ;  in  the  centre  a  great  scale,  on  one  pan  the 
heart  of  the  deceased,  and  on  the  other  the  truth 
symbolized  as  a  feather.  The  gods,  Horus  and 
Anubis,  make  the  test,  whether  the  heart  will  not 
be  found  too  light  before  truth.  And  the  clerk- 
god,  Thoth,  stands  behind,  with  all  his  writing 
material,  to  take  down  the  result  and  carry  his  re- 
port to  the  judge.  The  125th  chapter  of  the  Rook 
of  the  Dead,  that  oldest  manual  of  confessions. 
which  at  the  same  time  contains  a  catechism  of 
Egyptian  morals,  records  for  us  what  the  soul  has 
to  say.  and,  according  to  Erman  (p.  104  sc^[.).  it 
is  essentially  as  follows: 

"Praised  be  thou,  preat  god.  lord  of  both  tniths,  I  have 
come  to  thee  that  I  may  Ix-hold  thy  Wauty.  I  know  thoe 
and  I  know  the  names  of  the  forty-two  pods  who  are  with 
thee  in  the  hall  of  both  truths,  who  feed  upon  them  that  do 
wickedly  and  who  drink  their  blood  on  the  day  of  reckoning: 

117 


Religion  and   Historic   Faiths 

I  come  to  thee  and  bring  the  truth  and  drive  ofT  sin.  I  have 
committed  no  sin  against  men  and  I  have  done  nothing  which 
is  hateful  to  the  gods.  I  have  not  spoken  evilly  of  any  man 
to  his  superior.  I  have  suffered  no  one  to  hunger,  I  have 
caused  no  one  to  weep,  neither  have  I  committed  murder  nor 
commanded  others  to  murder.  I  have  caused  pain  to  no 
man.  I  have  not  lessened  the  food  in  the  temples,  neither 
have  I  stolen  the  bread  of  the  gods  nor  the  food  of  the  trans- 
figured. I  have  not  practised  unchastity  on  the  pure  place 
of  my  native  god.  I  have  not  falsified  the  measure  of  corn, 
nor  the  measure  of  length,  nor  the  field  measure,  nor  the 
weight  of  the  scales.  I  have  not  stolen  the  milk  from  the 
mouth  of  the  infant,  nor  have  I  stolen  the  cattle  from  the 
pasture,  nor  have  I  caught  the  birds  and  fishes  of  the  gods. 
The  waters  of  the  inundation  have  I  not  hemmed.  I  have 
not  interfered  with  the  temple  income  of  the  god.  I  have 
not  been  eavesdropping.  I  have  not  committed  adultery. 
I  was  not  deaf  to  words  of  truth.  I  have  not  eaten  up  my 
heart  with  affliction.  I  have  not  been  disdainful  nor  have  I 
made  many  words.  I  have  not  blasphemed  the  king  nor 
have  I  despised  the  god.  Behold,  I  come  to  you  without  sin. 
I  have  done  that  which  men  say  is  satisfactory  to  the  gods. 
I  have  given  bread  to  the  hungry,  drink  to  the  thirsty,  rai- 
ment to  the  naked,  and  ferriage  to  him  without  a  boat.  I 
have  Vjcen  a  father  to  the  orphan,  a  husband  to  the  widow, 
a  shelter  to  the  freezing.  I  am  one  who  (only)  has  spoken 
and  narrated  good.  I  have  gained  my  possessions  by  righte- 
ous means.  I  have  given  sacrifices  to  the  gods  and  gifts  to 
the  transfigured  dead.  Save  me,  protect  me.  Ye  will  not 
accuse  me  before  the  great  god.  I  am  one  of  a  clean  mouth 
and  of  clean  hands,  to  whom  those  who  see  him  say  wel- 
come." 

Thus,  the  Book  of  the  Dead  pictures,  in  the  form 
of  a  confession  of  the  soul  before  the  seat  of  divine 
judgment,  the  moral  ideal  of  an  Egyptian  who  has 
honestly  fulfilled  his  duties  toward  the  gods  and 
men.     We  must  not  be  surpri.sed  that  ritual  and 

ii8 


The   Egyptian   Religion 

moral  duties  are  indiscriminately  mixed  together ; 
in  the  priests'  law-books  of  all  religions,  it  is  not 
otherwise — think  of  the  laws  of  Moses,  the  Indian 
law  of  Manu,  the  Persian  Avesta,  and  the  others. 
In  any  event,  we  may  form  this  judgment,  that,  in 
consideration  of  its  great  antiquity,  the  moral  ideal 
contained  in  the  Egyptian  Book  of  the  Dead  is  one 
deserving  of  our  highest  respect.  Thus,  from  this 
side,  too.  we  find  confirmation  of  the  fact  that  the 
Egyptian  religion  was  not  poor  in  noble  seeds  of 
truth ;  naturally,  they  could  not  come  to  pure  and 
powerful  development  because  the  all-too-conserva- 
tive character  of  the  people  ever  held  tenaciously 
to  the  old.  naturalistic  notions  and  customs,  despite 
the  attempts  at  betterment ;  and  the  dcnible  pressure 
of  priestly  hierarchy  and  political  despotism  made 
the  elevation  to  free  human  culture  and  civilization 
most  difficult. 


no 


VII 


THE    BABYLONIAN    RELIGION 

This  religion  may  be  followed  back  even  further 
than  the  Egyptian.  Its  oldest  historical  documents 
extend  back  to  the  beginning  of  the  fourth  mil- 
lenium  B.C.  According  to  the  opinion  of  the  learned 
Assyriologist,  Bezold,  it  would  be  arrogant,  at  the 
present  day,  to  attempt  to  tell  the  history  of  this 
religion.  Much  as  we  have  to  be  thankful  to  the 
industry  and  keenness  of  those  learned  men  who 
have  busied  themselves  for  more  than  a  half-cen- 
tury with  .the  decipherment  of  cuneiform  inscrip- 
tions, and  valuable  as  are  the  finds  which  have 
resulted  from  the  excavations  in  the  ruins  of  the 
cities  of  Mesopotamia  and  are  ever  being  made, 
we  are  still  far  from  any  positive  knowledge  con- 
cerning the  origins  of  the  Babylonian  religion  in 
pre-Semitic  and  Semitic  roots,  and  its  changes  in 
the  course  of  time.  This  much,  however,  may  be 
accepted  as  certain :  in  the  Babylonian,  as  in  the 
Egyptian  religion,  a  worship  of  various  local  deities 
of  single  districts  and  cities  of  the  valley  of  the 
Euphrates  and  the  Tigris,  was  fundamental.  The 
combination  of  these  deities   into  one  polytheistic 

120 


The  Babylonian  Religion 

system  is  not  at  the  beginning",  but  is  the  work  of 
schools  of  priests  which  liad  been  begun  in  the  old 
monarchy  and  completed  later,  particularly  after 
the  union  of  upper  and  lower  Babylon  into  the  one 
kingdom  ruled  by  Hammurabi  (about  2250  B.C.). 
In  this  religion  of  a  realm,  again,  we  meet  at  the 
outset,  as  in  Egypt,  several  triads.  The  highest  of 
these,  Anu,  Bel,  and  Hoa,  had  been  systematized  in 
the  old  monarchy  of  Ur  so  that  Anu  ruled  over 
heaven,  Bel  over  the  earth,  and  Hoa  over  the  sea. 
That  was  an  artificial  division,  for  originally  the 
three  existed  independently  alongside  of  one  an- 
other, each  one  being  the  supreme  power  within  the 
boundaries  of  his  worship.  Hoa,  as  the  local  deity 
of  Eribu,  was  probably  a  totemistic  fish-god,  the 
**  Oannes  "  of  Berosus,  who  later  became  the  god  of 
depth,  then  of  deep  wisdom,  of  oracles  and  formula; 
of  exorcism.  Another  triad  was  Sin,  the  moon- 
god,  with  his  two  children,  Shamash,  the  sun,  and 
Istar,  the  great  mother  of  all  living,  the  goddess  of 
fertility  and  of  love,  and  also  of  death  and  war 
(particularly  the  latter  in  Assyria).  Later,  I  will 
speak  of  the  myth  which  tells  of  her  journey  to 
hell.  I  wish  to  remark  here,  that,  instead  of  Istar, 
Ramman  is  also  mentioned  as  the  third  member  of 
this  triad.  He  is  the  lightning  and  rain  god  native 
in  Assyria,  who  was  later  brought  into  connection 
with  the  sun  in  Hammurabi's  religion  of  the  realm. 
It  must  be  remarked  further  that  the  Babylonian 
wisdom  of  the  priests  artifically  combined  the  exist- 

121 


Religion  and   Historic   Faiths 

ing  popular  deities  with  the  stars,  a  combination 
which  certainly  was  strange  to  the  popular  con- 
sciousness— for  what  people  is  ever  well  versed 
in  astronomy?  It  is  a  gross  error,  therefore,  to 
think  that  Istar  was  really  the  planet  Venus,  and 
that  the  myth  of  her  descent  to  hell  was  related  to 
the  disappearance  and  appearance  of  the  evening 
and  the  morning  star.  Such  poetic  interpretations, 
whether  they  be  old  or  new,  do  not  correspond  to 
the  original  sense  and  deep  seriousness  of  earliest 
religious  beliefs.  The  fact  is,  rather,  that  the 
astrological  wisdom  of  the  priests  established  a 
mystical  relation  not  closely  definable  between  the 
five  planets  and  the  popular  deities;  these  became 
half-way  identical  so  that  the  god  of  war  and  of 
death.  Xergal,  was  the  reddish  planet.  Mars;  Nabu, 
the  god  of  revelation  and  of  priests,  was  the  planet. 
Mercury;  Marduk,  the  king's  god,  was  the  imperial 
planet,  Jupiter;  Istar,  the  goddess  of  love,  was  the 
lovely  evening  star,  Venus,  and,  finally,  Ninib,  the 
god  of  storms  and  of  war,  was  the  planet  Saturn. 
These  five  planetary  deities,  together  with  the  sun 
and  the  moon,  ruled  the  seven  days  of  the  week, 
which  the  Romans  took  over  from  the  Babylonians 
and  transmitted  to  the  Occident. 

From  the  time  of  the  founding  of  the  empire  by 
Hammurabi,  ]\Iarduk,  the  local  deity  of  Babel,  cap- 
ital city  of  the  realm,  was  elevated  to  the  dignity  of 
the  highest  god  of  the  realm  just  as  Amen-Ra  had 
been  elevated  in  the  new  Egyptian  empire.     This 

122 


The  Babylonian  Religion 

primacy  of  Mardnk,  resting  primarily  on  a  political 
basis,  was  ecclesiastically  sanctioned  by  the  priest- 
hood of  Babel  in  that  they  converted  the  spring-new- 
year  festival,  Zalmukii,  into  a  festival  of  victory  of 
Marduk;  the  spring  hymn,  singing  the  annual  vic- 
tory of  the  sun  over  the  storm  season  and  winter 
rains,  was  developed  into  an  epic  of  creation  in 
which  the  principal  role  of  creator  and  victor  over 
chaos  was  assigned  to  Marduk.  the  god  of  Babel. 

This  creation  epic  has  an  especial  interest  for  us, 
inasmuch  as  there  are  certain  points  of  contact  be- 
tween it  and  the  story  of  creation  told  in  the  first 
chapter  of  the  Bible.  The  myth  begins :  In  the  be- 
ginning there  was  neither  heaven  nor  earth  nor  a 
single  god,  but  only  the  waters  of  the  ocean  and 
Tiamat,  the  dragon  of  chaos  (the  biblical  Tehom)  ; 
by  a  combination  of  them  the  first  god-pairs,  and 
then  the  great  gods  and  Marduk  came  into  being. 
Now  Tiamat,  who  saw  her  power  jeopardized  by 
them,  challenged  these  gods  to  combat  and  then 
began  the  decisive  struggle  between  the  divine  gov- 
ernment of  the  world  and  the  elemental  chaos  simi- 
lar to  the  struggle  between  titans  and  giants  against 
the  Olympians  in  Greek  mythology.  But  one  after 
the  other  of  the  older  gods  attempted  in  vain  to 
resist  the  fearful  monster:  in  their  dire  need,  they 
concluded  to  select  Marduk  as  their  champion  and 
conveyed  to  him  their  combined  power.  "  Hence- 
forward be  thy  p<')wer  unbounded  :  in  thy  hand  be  it 
to  lift  up  and  to  make  low ;  nothing  can  resist  thy 


Religion  and   Historic  Faiths 

command;  among  the  gods  not  one  can  withdraw 
from  thy  riilership."  Upon  this  condition,  Marduk 
accepts  the  decision  of  the  gods,  arms  himself  with 
a  sword,  a  spear  and  a  net,  creates  a  destructive 
wind  which  he  blows  into  the  mouth  of  Tiamat,  who 
had  opened  it  in  order  to  get  air;  then  Marduk 
pierces  her  body  and  divides  it  into  two  halves,  one 
of  which  he  converts  into  the  vault  of  heaven,  as  a 
receptacle  for  the  upper  waters,  and  locks  it  tight 
with  bolts.  Thereupon,  he  sets  bounds  for  the  lower 
waters  and  strides  through  the  heavens  as  a  victori- 
ous ruler.  In  the  heavens,  he  marks  the  stations  of 
the  single  gods  (the  stars),  while  he  makes  the  moon 
the  night  light  to  designate  the  days  (of  the  month). 
Finally,  he  creates  men,  but  how  they  were  created 
cannot  be  seen  from  the  epic.  The  epic  closes  with 
this  warning :  "  The  fear  of  god  produces  benevo- 
lence. Sacrifice  lengthens  life,  and  prayer  wipes 
away  sin," — practically  the  essence  of  the  Marduk 
faith.  (After  Jastrow,  die  Babyl.  und  Assyr.  Re- 
ligion, Cap.  XXI.) 

While  the  points  of  contact  between  this  epic  and 
the  biblical  story  of  creation  cannot  be  overlooked, 
equally  certain  is  it  that  the  difference  between  them 
is  greater  than  their  relationship,  so  that  a  direct 
borrowing  can  scarcely  be  accepted;  much  more 
probable  is  the  hypothesis  of  common  Semitic  sagas 
out  of  which  the  Babylonian  priests,  on  the  one 
hand,  created  their  polytheistic  epic  of  the  struggle 
and  the  victory  of  the  gods,  while  on  the  other  hand, 

124 


The  Babylonian  Religion 

the  Hebrew  poet  composed  the  subhme  picture  of  a 
struggle-free  creation  by  one  all-powerful  creating 
god.  Much  closer  is  the  relationship  of  the  Baby- 
lonian and  the  biblical  legends  which  tell  the  story 
of  the  Deluge ;  in  the  Babylonian  version  the  hero's 
name  is  Sit-Napistim  (Xisuthros).  The  god  Hoa 
confides  to  him  that  the  other  gods,  angered  by 
men's  sins,  had  decided  upon  their  destruction  by  a 
deluge  of  waters.  Acting  upon  the  advice  of  his 
protecting  deity,  he  builds  the  ark  and  loads  it  with 
all  his  possessions  and  with  animals  of  every  kind. 
The  deluge  comes  simultaneously  from  heaven  and 
from  the  sea.  The  gods  themselves,  in  anxiety  and 
terror,  flee  before  its  rage.  After  seven  days,  the 
ark  rests  securely  on  Mt.  Nisir.  First  Sit-Napistim 
sends  forth  a  dove  which  returns;  then  a  swallow, 
but  she  too  finds  no  dry  ground  and  returns ;  finally 
a  raven,  which  returns  nevermore.  Sit-Napistim 
then  abandons  his  ship  and  on  the  summit  of  the 
mountain  offers  up  a  sacrifice  of  thanksgiving,  upon 
which  the  gods  fall  like  flies.  Old  Bel,  alone,  is 
angry  that  all  men  have  not  been  destroyed,  while 
Istar  mourns  that  so  many  living  beings  have  died ; 
excited  quarrels  occur  at  all  the  meetings  of  the 
gods,  until  Ea  succeeds  in  pacifying  the  combatants. 
Thereupon  they  are  reconciled  to  the  human  beings 
that  have  been  saved  and  transport  Sit-Napistim  to 
the  paradise  of  the  blest. 

This    conclusion    of    the    Babylonian    legend    is 
reminiscent    of    the   biblical    translation    of    pious 

125 


Religion  and   Historic  Faiths 

Enoch ;  it  seems,  therefore,  as  though  in  the  Baby- 
lonian story  Sit-Napistim  combines  in  one  single 
figure  the  two  heroes,  Noah  and  Enoch,  of  old 
Semitic  story. 

The  biblical  story  of  paradise,  in  a  measure,  re- 
calls the  myth  of  the  hero,  Adapa,  that  son  of  Hoa. 
who  had  broken  the  wings  of  the  south  wind  and 
thereby  brought  upon  himself  the  anger  of  the  god 
Ann.  The  latter  orders  this  hero  to  appear  before 
his  throne  and  answer  the  charge  of  arrogant  inva- 
sion of  the  divine  rulership  of  the  world.  Hoa  dis- 
misses his  son  with  the  advice  that  he  do  not 
partake  of  the  food  or  drink  that  will  be  offered  to 
him  in  the  hall  of  the  gods,  for  it  is  his  death-meal. 
Adapa  departs  clad  in  the  garb  of  mourning  and,  by 
tlie  mediation  of  the  other  gods,  succeeds  in  pacify- 
ing the  angry  Anu.  Inasmuch,  however,  as  he  has 
seen  secrets  of  heaven  never  shown  to  mortals,  the 
gods  decide  to  offer  him  the  bread  of  life  and  the 
drink  of  life,  and  to  make  him  one  of  themselves. 
But  Adapa.  remembering  the  paternal  advice,  refuses 
the  proffered  food,  whereupon  Anu  looks  on  him  in 
sorrow  and  asks:  "Why  dost  thou  thus?  Now 
thou  canst  not  live  [forever]."  Thus  Adapa  has 
lost  the  possibility  of  immortal  life  with  the  gods 
through  his  incredulity,  and  must  return  to  earth. 

Here,  then,  as  in  the  biblical  story,  immortality 
depends  upon  the  eating  of  the  food  of  life,  and 
here,  as  there,  it  is  lost  by  the  fateful  obedience  to 
bad  counsel.    In  the  Bible,  it  is  the  demonic  counsel 

126 


The  Babylonian   Religion 

of  the  snake  which  causes  the  doubt  and  disobedi- 
ence of  the  divine  command,  while  in  the  Baby- 
lonian legend,  it  is  the  deceptive  counsel  of  the  god 
himself  which  seals  the  fate  of  the  obedient  man. 
Thus  we  see  again  how  common  Semitic  legends  are 
worked  out  in  entirely  different  senses  on  two  sides. 
Finally,  the  myth  of  Istar's  journey  to  hell,  pecu- 
liar to  the  Babylonians,  must  be  mentioned.  In 
order  to  fetch  the  water  of  life  for  the  revivification 
of  her  dead  lover,  Tammuz,  the  goddess  descends 
into  the  nether  world,  the  "  land  without  return." 
Through  seven  doors,  all  locked  and  guarded,  she 
must  pass.  At  the  first,  she  demands  admission  in 
commanding  tones,  threatening  to  destroy  the  por- 
tals of  the  nether  world  and  lead  up  all  the  dead. 
The  guardian  announces  this  to  the  mistress  of  the 
underworld,  who  commands  that  Istar  be  permitted 
to  pass,  but  only  according  to  the  laws  of  the  nether 
world.  Accordingly,  at  each  gate,  one  piece  of 
jewelry  or  one  garment  after  the  other  is  taken 
from  her.  Naked,  she  appears  before  the  goddess 
of  death  and  the  latter  commands  her  demons  to 
inflict  upon  Istar  all  of  their  diseases.  The  disap- 
pearance of  the  goddess  of  love  from  earth  has  this 
consequence:  all  conception  and  reproduction  of 
men  and  cattle  seems  about  to  cease,  and  a  general 
dying-off  is  imminent.  Then  the  higher  gods  must 
bring  their  help.  They  send  their  messenger, 
Assusunamir,  to  tlie  queen  of  the  nether  world  with 

the  strict  command  that  Istar  be  suffered  to  depart 

127 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

unhurt.  Reluctantly,  the  mistress  of  death  bows 
before  the  command  of  the  gods  and  permits  the 
sick  goddess  to  be  sprayed  with  the  waters  of  life ; 
thus  healed,  she  begins  her  return  journey,  recovers 
her  garments  and  her  jewelry  at  each  of  the  seven 
gates,  and  emerges  into  the  upper  world  with  all 
her  old-time  glory.  Thereupon  she  brings  her  lover, 
Tammuz,  back  to  life  with  the  waters  of  life.  A 
general  festival  of  joy,  with  music  and  song,  fol- 
lows :  the  counterpart  of  the  spring  festival  of 
Adonis  and  Astarte  in  Syria,  of  the  Osiris  and  Isis 
festival  in  Egypt,  and  of  the  Demeter  and  Kore 
festival  in  Greece. 

Better  even  than  all  these  myths,  the  hymns  and 
penitential  psalms  which  have  become  known  to  us 
through  the  decipherment  of  the  cuneiform  inscrip- 
tions serve  to  characterize  the  Babylonian  religion. 
I  will  give  you  a  few  of  these  as  they  have  been 
translated  by  Jastrow  and  Zimmern.  A  prayer  of 
King  Nebuchadnezzar  to  Marduk : 

"O,  Eternal  Ruler,  lord  of  all,  grant  that  the  name  of  the 
king  whom  thou  lovest,  whose  name  thou  hast  named  (called 
to  the  throne)  may  flourish  as  it  seems  good  to  thee.  Lead 
him  along  the  right  path.  I  am  the  ruler  who  obeys  thee, 
the  creation  of  thy  hand.  Thou  hast  created  me  and  hast 
entrusted  me  with  the  rulership  over  men.  According  to 
thy  mercy,  which  thou  grantest  to  all,  O  Lord,  let  me  love 
thy  highest  law.  Plant  in  my  heart  the  fear  of  thy  divinity. 
Grant  me  all  that  may  seem  good  to  thee,  for  thou  art  he  who 
guards  my  life." 

A  prayer  to  Istar : 

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The  Babylonian  Religion 

"  It  is  good  to  pray  to  thee,  for  thou  art  inclined  to  listen. 
Thy  glance  is  a  hearing  of  prayer,  thy  utterance  light.  Have 
mercy  upon  me,  Istar,  proclaim  my  welfare.  Faithfully  look 
upon  me.  Hearken  to  my  beseeching.  If  I  follow  thy  foot- 
steps, be  my  progress  sure.  If  I  seize  thy  cord,  may  I  possess 
joyousness.  If  I  bear  thy  yoke,  relieve  me  of  my  burdens. 
If  I  have  regard  to  thy  glance,  may  my  prayer  be  heard  and 
granted.  If  I  seek  thy  rulership,  may  life  and  salvation  be 
my  portion.  May  the  good  protecting  spirit  which  stands 
before  thee  be  mine,  may  I  achieve  the  prosperity,  which 
stand  to  thy  right  hand  and  to  thy  left.  Speak  thou  that 
my  speech  be  heard.  In  health  and  joyousness  lead  me 
daily.  Make  my  days  long,  give  me  life.  May  I  be  healthy 
and  uninjured,  that  I  may  worship  thy  divinity.  As  I  wish, 
may  I  achieve.  The  heavens  rejoice  in  thee,  the  deeps  of  the 
waters  shout  with  joy  to  thee.  May  the  gods  of  all  render 
homage  to  thee.     May  the  great  gods  rejoice  thy  heart.'- 

A  penitential  prayer  to  Istar,  with  incidental 
words  of  the  mediating  priest : 

" '  I,  thy  slave,  full  of  sighs,  cry  to  thee.  Accept  thou  the 
fervent  prayer  of  him  who  has  sinned.  When  thou  lookest 
with  mercy  upon  man,  that  man  lives.  O,  almighty  mistress 
of  man,  merciful,  turning  in  goodness  toward  them,  she 
hearkens  to  supplications.'  The  priest  says:  'His  god 
and  his  goddess  are  angry  at  him,  therefore  he  calls  upon 
thee.  Turn  thy  countenance  toward  him.  Take  him  by  his 
hand.  Outside  of  thee  there  is  no  god  to  set  aright.'  The 
penitent  says:  'Look  upon  me  truly,  accept  my  supplication. 
How  long  yet,  say,  ere  thy  spirit  will  be  milder.  How  long 
yet,  my  mistress,  will  thy  countenance  be  turned  away.  I 
coo  like  a  dove,  with  sighs  am  I  filled.'  The  priest  says: 
'  With  woe  and  mourning  is  his  soul  full  of  sighs,  tears  he 
weeps  and  breaks  forth  in  lamentations.'  " 

A  penitential  prayer  for  any  god : 

"O,  Lord,  my  sins  are  many,  great  are  my  transgressions. 
I  know  not  the  sin  which  I  have  committed,  nor  do  I  know  the 

129 


Religion  and   Historic   Faiths 

transgression.  The  god  whom  I  know,  whom  I  do  not  know, 
hath  oppressed  me;  the  goddess  whom  I  know,  whom  I  do 
not  know,  hath  caused  me  pain.  When  I  sought  help,  no  one 
took  me  by  the  hand.  When  I  wept,  no  one  came  to  my  side. 
How  long,  my  god,  my  goddess,  will  thy  anger  not  cease  and 
thy  unfriendly  heart  not  find  rest?  O  Lord,  despise  not  thy 
slave.  Cast  into  the  waters  of  the  marsh,  take  him  by  the 
hand.  Turn  the  sin  which  I  have  committed  to  good  and 
make  the  wind  to  carry  off  my  transgression.  Disrobe  me 
of  my  many  trespasses  as  of  a  garment.  My  god,  my  goddess, 
though  my  sins  be  seven  times  seven,  forgive  my  sins.  For- 
give them,  and  I  will  bow  down  before  thee.  Let  thy  heart 
come  to  rest  as  the  heart  of  the  mother  who  bore  me,  of  the 
father  who  begot  me." 

Recently,  these  penitential  psalms  have  been  some- 
what overrated,  because  they  have  been  regarded  as 
fully  equal  to  those  of  the  Bible.  At  bottom,  they 
contain  nothing  more  than  the  lively  desire  to  be 
freed  from  the  evil  which  has  befallen  the  one  pray- 
ing. That  this  evil  is  brought  into  connection  with 
a  guilt  which  has  excited  the  anger  of  the  god  does 
show  a  movement  of  the  moral  conscience  in  combi- 
nation with  the  religious  feeling  of  dependence,  but 
it  is  never  actually  a  matter  of  salvation  from  the 
sin  itself,  but  only  from  its  evil  consequences;  there 
is  no  trace  of  moral  self-searching  or  self- judgment, 
of  a  demand  for  inner  betterment  and  purification. 
So  it  miLdit  be  said  that  these  penitential  prayers  do 
not  essentially  go  beyond  the  realm  of  polytheistic 
nature-religion.  This  judgment  is  the  more  justi- 
fied when  we  recall  how  closely  these  prayers  are 
related  to  and  go  over  into  the  magicial  formuL-e 
of  exorcism  which  play  a  larger  part  in  the  Baby- 

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The  Babylonian   Religion 

Ionian  religion  than  anywhere  else,  because  they 
stand  in  closest  relation  to  the  astrological  belief  in 
fate,  systematized  by  the  priests.  In  all  other  re- 
ligions, naturally,  the  superstitious  belief  in  omens 
and  magic  means  is  to  be  found,  but  only  as  a  pop- 
ular sub-structure  of  the  official  religion,  which  from 
its  higher  standpoint  rejects  such  naturalistic  sur- 
vivals of  a  crude  past.  However,  the  superstitious 
belief  in  soothsaying  and  magic  was  an  essential 
part  of  the  priestly  religion  itself  among  the  Baby- 
lonians, and  the  main  obstacle  to  its  elevation  to 
higher  ideals. 

The  Babylonian  priests  had  busied  themselves 
early  with  astrological  studies,  but  they  had  never 
achieved  such  extent  of  astronomical  knowledge  as 
is  to  be  found  among  the  Greek  natural  philosophers. 
Instead  of  observing  the  movements  of  the  heavenly 
bodies  in  the  interest  of  pure  knowledge,  they  used 
their  observations  in  order  to  make  an  arbitrary 
connection  with  the  fates  of  men.  and  so  they  be- 
came the  discoverers  of  that  astrological  pseudo- 
science,  the  delusion  which  weighed  humanity  down 
for  so  long  a  time.  In  their  official  rep<irts.  there  are 
capital  examples  of  the  arbitrary  fashion  in  wliich 
the  astrologers  made  oracles  out  of  the  |)hcnomcna 
of  the  heavens.  Once  we  reail :  Because  sun  and 
moon  are  visible  at  the  same  time  on  such  and  such  a 
day,  the  gods  will  be  favorably  inclined  to  the  land, 
the  people  peaceable,  the  army  obedient,  and  the 
cattle  safe  in  their  pasture:  another  time,  exactly  the 

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Religion  and   Historic  Faiths 

same  position  of  sun  and  moon  leads  to  tlie  conclu- 
sion that  a  gloomy  period  awaits  the  land,  a  strong 
enemy  will  destroy  it,  and  the  king  will  be  forced 
into  subjection.  An  eclipse  of  the  moon  on  such 
and  such  a  day  of  the  month  portends  the  death  of 
an  inimical  king.  On  another  day,  it  means  an 
imminent  war ;  on  a  third  day,  an  inundation ;  on  a 
fourth,  famine ;  on  a  fifth,  miscarriages  and  the  like. 
The  astrological  calendar  determined  accurately  for 
each  day  of  the  month,  on  the  basis  of  the  position 
of  the  planets  with  regard  to  one  another  and  to 
other  stars,  for  what  action,  particularly  of  the 
king,  it  was  favorable  or  unfavorable.  It  is  ap- 
parent what  an  immense  power  the  priesthood  was 
able  to  exercise  by  the  supposed  knowledge  of  the 
decisions  of  heaven  concerning  earthly  life,  govern- 
mental and  private.  Was  not  Paul  right  when  he 
characterized  heathenism  as  "  the  slavery  under  the 
poor  and  weak  world  elements  "  ?  But  the  other 
side  of  this  spiritual  unfreedom  was  the  false  free- 
dom of  magic,  which  seeks  to  force  the  spiritual 
powers  into  the  service  of  human  discretion  by 
means  of  exorcistic  formulae. 

Perhaps  one  may  say  that  it  is  just  this  double 
superstition,  on  the  one  side  fate  determined  by 
signs  in  heaven  and  on  earth,  on  the  other,  the 
witchcraft  served  by  mysterious  powers,  which  is 
characteristic  of  the  weakness  of  nature-religion 
generally.     On  the  one  hand,  man  remains  caught 

in  slavish  fear  of  fate's  dark  decree,  and  on  the 

132 


The  Babylonian   Religion 

other  hand,  he  thinks  that  he  is  able  to  elevate  his 
own  wild  caprice  and  arbitrariness  to  be  mistress 
over  the  world.  Now  bold,  now  humble,  his  heart  is 
never  at  rest,  as  it  can  only  be  in  the  free  surrender 
to  the  divine  v^ill  of  the  good.  Alan  had  to  tear 
himself  loose  from  the  bonds  of  nature  and  magic; 
he  had  to  learn  that  the  revelation  of  God  was  to  be 
sought  not  only  outside  of  himself  in  nature,  but 
also  and  especially  within  himself.  "  In  thy  breast 
are  the  stars  of  thy  fate."  When  man  began  to 
turn  his  gaze  inward,  he  found,  in  the  voice  of  his 
own  conscience,  in  the  feeling  of  his  ow^n  heart  for 
a  noble  human  ideal,  that  revelation  of  God  which 
is  more  than  a  mere  nature  power,  which  is  the  holy 
will  of  the  good  and  which  will  elevate  man  through 
obedience  to  the  freedom  of  the  intlividual  spirit. 
Therewith,  we  stand  before  the  decisive  turn  in  the 
history  of  religion,  the  turn  from  nature  to  spirit. 
This  change,  however,  could  only  be  brought  about 
everywhere  by  single  enlightened  spirits  who  felt 
the  god  in  their  own  breast  stronger  and  recognized 
it  more  clearly  than  the  masses  about  them.  They 
were  the  seers  through  whose  seeing,  and  the 
prophets  and  the  wise  men  through  whose  teach- 
ings, the  new  beginnings  of  a  higher  ethical  stage 
of  development  of  religion  went  forth.  From  this 
time  on,  our  discussion  will  deal  with  these  proj)hetic 
or  historical  religions,  and  we  will  begin  with  that 
of  Zarathustra. 


133 


VIII 

THE  RELIGION  OF  ZARATIIUSTRA  AND  THE 
MITIIRA  CULT 

As  IN  the  cases  of  other  religious  heroes,  the  life 
of  Zarathiistra  is  richly  embellished  by  legends. 
Before  his  birth  the  future  greatness  of  her  son  was 
revealed  to  his  mother  in  dreams.  Immediately 
after  his  birth,  it  is  said,  he  laughed — characteristic 
of  his  later  courageous  optimism.  As  a  child,  in- 
imical spirits  sought  to  trap  him,  but  in  vain.  As 
a  youth,  he  withdrew  from  the  world,  and  in  his 
thirtieth  year,  on  a  solitary  mountain,  he  had  his 
first  vision :  he  felt  himself  elevated  to  a  place  be- 
fore the  throne  of  God  and  from  God  himself 
heard  the  revelation  of  the  true  religion  and  the  call 
to  be  prophet  of  the  true  God.  Soon  thereafter,  a 
demon  sought  to  kill  him,  but  a  word  of  the  prophet 
forced  him  to  retire  powerless.  Then  the  highest 
of  the  devils,  Ahriman,  approached  him  with  tempt- 
ing insinuations :  "  Forswear  the  good  law  of  God 
and,  by  my  grace.  I  will  elevate  thee  to  the  kingly 
power."  But  Zarathustra  answered :  "  No,  I  will 
not  forswear  tlie  law  of  God,  though  my  body,  life 
and  spirit  disintegrate." 

134 


The   Religion   of  Zarathustra 

On  tlie  basis  of  the  similarities  between  these 
legends  and  those  told  of  other  heroes,  the  conclu- 
sion has  been  drawn  that  Zarathustra  was  not  a  his- 
torical person  but  a  mythical  figure.  But,  uncer- 
tain as  the  traditions  are, — concerning  the  period 
of  his  appearance,  the  suppositions  vary  from  tlie 
fourteenth  to  the  seventh  century  B.C. — there  can 
be  scarcely  any  doubt  that  Zarathustra  was  a  char- 
acter of  history.  In  the  Gathas.  the  oldest  portion 
of  the  Avesta,  the  sacred  writings  of  the  Persians, 
his  person  and  those  about  him  appear  in  clear  out- 
lines. He  was  a  priest  of  the  race  of  Spitam,  and 
stood  in  close  connection  with  the  court  of  King 
Vistaspa;  the  latter  and  his  wife  and  his  highest 
officers  were  among  the  earliest  followers  of  Zara- 
thustra. One  of  the  latter  became  his  father-in- 
law  ;  we  learn  of  his  sons  and  daughters,  and  a  wed- 
ding song  which  he  composed  for  the  wedding 
feast  of  one  of  his  daughters  is  extant.  Besides 
these  single  features,  the  hymns  of  the  Gathas  fur- 
nish us  with  a  detailed  picture  of  the  civilization  of 
the  |>eople  and  contemporaries  of  Zarathustra.  The 
Indo-Germanic  tribes  which  lived  in  East  Iran  or 
Bactria,  between  the  Hindu-Kush  Mountains  and 
the  Caspian  Sea,  were,  at  that  time,  mainly  settled 
farmers  and  cattlc-raiscrs ;  by  dint  of  hard  work, 
they  won  their  nourishment  from  the  rough  soil 
and  the  raw  climate.  They  were  ever  in  fear  of  the 
marauding  expeditions  of  their  nomadic  neighbors, 
expeditions  which  often  burst  in  upon  the  peaceful 

135 


Religion  and  Historic   Faiths 

settlement  of  these  peasants,  killing  the  men,  the 
women  and  the  children  and  dragging  off  the  cattle 
as  booty. 

Thus  we  get  a  glimpse  of  a  civilization  that 
is  just  beginning,  one  which  must  defend  itself 
against  surrounding  barbarians  and  maintain  its 
existence  with  difficulty.  Under  the  leadership  of 
their  "  lying  priests,"  and  under  the  protection  of 
their  "  lying  gods,"  the  D^evas,  as  they  are  called 
in  the  Gathas,  these  robber  hordes  undertook  their 
campaigns.  These  Daevas  are  the  same  beings 
known  to  us  from  the  oldest  songs  of  the  Indian 
Veda:  they  are  personified  nature-powers  among 
whom  the  demon  of  intoxication.  Soma  and  Indra, 
that  ruffian  who  is  nearly  always  drunk,  that  patron 
of  the  knights  of  the  road,  played  the  principal  role 
— purely  naturalistic  gods,  entirely  unethical  beings, 
comparable  to  the  Baalim  of  Canaan.  Under  the 
protection  of  such  gods,  the  nomadic  hordes  under- 
took their  plundering  expeditions  against  the  peace- 
ful settlements  of  the  peasants  of  Iran  in  whose 
midst  Zarathustra  lived.  Ever  louder  rose  the 
cries  of  the  oppressed  for  help,  cries  for  a  protector 
on  earth  and  in  heaven.  The  earthly  protector 
api)eared  in  the  person  of  King  Vistaspa,  who 
at  this  time  probably  established  his  kingly  rule 
through  his  protection  of  the  peaceful  peasants 
against  the  robber  bands.  The  priest  Zarathustra 
allied  himself  to  the  king,  for  the  oppression  of  his 
people  struck  at  his  heart  and  his  keen  eye  saw  the 

136 


The  Religion  of  Zaratlmstra 

mighty  contrast  between  those  immoral,  lying  gods 
of  the  robbers  and  the  true  God,  the  source  of  "  the 
best  order,"  the  protector  of  right  and  peace  among 
a  people,  in  whose  name  alone  victory  is  to  be  won 
and  permanent  order  established.  In  the  Gathas, 
there  is  preserved  for  us  a  most  vivid  description  of 
the  call  of  Zarathustra:  how  the  cry  of  the  op- 
pressed peasants  pierces  the  heavens ;  how  the 
celectial  hosts  of  spirits  take  counsel  at  the  throne 
of  the  highest  god,  Ahura,  as  to  whom  the  mis- 
sion of  saving  the  people  shall  be  confided ;  how 
Ahura  then  chooses  Zarathustra  and  the  latter  ac- 
cepts the  call,  praying  that  Ahura  send  him  the  good 
spirit  and  give  him  the  power  for  the  fulfillment  of 
his  mission.  Well  he  feels  his  own  weakness  as 
against  the  magnitude  of  his  task,  and  well  he 
knows  the  pain  which  the  opposition  of  men  will 
bring  to  him,  but  in  confidence  and  obedience  h(/ 
bows  in  submissitm  to  the  divine  will : 

"That  thou  art  holy,  O  all-wise  Ruler,  I  have  seen  when 
the  best  of  spirits  came  to  me,  when  by  thy  words  I  first 
was  taught.  Whoever  gives  himself  to  thee  will  suffer  sorrow 
at  the  hands  of  men,  but  whatever  thou  sayest  is  best,  that 
shall  be  done.  I  know  why  it  goes  ill  with  me  and  I  make  my 
complaint  to  thee.  Look  thou  into  it,  O  Lord,  and  give  mo 
joy,  such  as  a  friend  offers  to  a  friend." 

And  then  he  goes  and  preaches  to  the  people  the 
God  who  had  revealed  himself  to  him  as  the  only 
true  one.  the  holy  will  of  the  good;  of  each  one, 
he  demands  a  decision  between  a  faith  in  his  God, 

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Religion  and   Historic  Faiths 

who  alone  is  salvation,  and  those  lying  gods  which 
lead  to  destruction.  That  was  a  situation  exactly 
like  the  one  we  know  in  biblical  history  when  the 
Prophet  Elijah,  in  the  name  of  Jehovah,  rises  up 
against  the  priests  of  Baal  and  demands  of  the  peo- 
ple that  they  choose  between  God  and  the  Baalim, 
and  no  longer  face  both  ways.  Here,  as  there,  it 
was  a  matter  of  the  struggle  between  the  naturalistic 
and  the  moral  idea  of  God,  hence  a  matter  of  per- 
sonal decision  of  each  individual  between  tlie  true 
and  the  false  faith.  Therewith  the  faith  is  no  longer 
a  simple,  traditional  possession  and  custom  of  the 
people,  to  which  each  one,  whether  he  will  or  no, 
must  surrender  simply  because  of  his  attachment  to 
the  tribal  group;  here,  however,  faith  becomes  the 
personal  conviction  of  the  individual,  who  must 
choose  between  the  nature-gods,  the  patrons  of 
arbitrary  and  crude  power,  and  the  true  God,  the 
Lord  of  order  and  rigliteousness.  Such  a  choice 
is  a  decision  of  the  will,  a  free  disentanglement  from 
the  evil  powers  and  a  solemn  promise  to  the  good 
spirit,  a  confession  of  attachment  to  his  being  and 
his  will,  a  decision  to  enter  his  service  and  cooperate 
in  the  work  for  his  good  cause. 

The  religion  of  Zarathustra  gave  first  expression 
to  its  faith  in  solemn  formuLne  of  confession,  and 
these,  at  least  in  sense  if  not  literally,  may  be  traced 
back  to  Zarathustra  himself:  "I  speak  myself  free 
from  the  evil  spirit  and  confess  myself  to  be  one  of 
the  Mazda-faithful."     "  The  will  of  the  Lord  is  the 

138 


The   Religion  of  Zarathustra 

law  of  righteousness,  the  reward  of  heaven  is  to  be 
hoped  for  for  those  works  performed  in  the  world 
for  Mazda;  Ahura  holds  him  right  who  supports 
the  poor."  "  "  Righteousness  is  the  best  possession ; 
blessed  the  man  whose  righteousness  is  perfect."  A 
union  of  the  naturalistic  and  the  moral,  the  two  re- 
ligious view-points,  can  never  be  brought  about ;  be- 
tween these  two  opposing  principles,  there  can  only 
be  perpetual  struggle ;  the  resolution  of  the  oppo- 
sition can  only  lie  in  the  hoped-for  final  victory  of 
the  good  principle  over  the  bad.  Thus,  as  in  the 
case  of  Elijah,  the  prophet  Zarathustra  is  full  of 
the  liveliest  sense  of  struggle :  "  Hearken  not  to  the 
lying  priests ;  hew  them  down  with  swords  and 
utterly  exterminate  them." 

I  think  that  that  is  the  origin  of  the  story  of  Zara- 
thustra. It  was  the  need  of  his  own  people  strug- 
gling at  the  very  beginning  of  their  civic  customs 
against  hordes  of  barbarians  which  brought  about 
in  the  soul  of  one  priest  the  knowledge  of  a  deep 
difference  between  the  crude  nature-gods  and  the 
god  of  a  moral  world-order.  Thus  Zarathustra  be- 
came the  prophet  of  Ahura  !Mazda,  that  is,  "  the  all- 
wise  Lord,"  the  one  creator  and  preserver  of  all 
good  and  of  all  possessions  in  the  natural  and  the 
moral  worlds;  the  god  who  is  free  from  all  arbitrary 
notions  and  whose  nature  consists  in  leading  the 
reasonable  purpose  of  life,  the  good,  to  its  victory. 

"  As  the  first  one,"  prays  Zarathustra.  "  I  have 
recognized  thee,  as  the  sublime  in  my  spirit,  as  the 

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Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

father  of  the  good  spirit,  the  true  creator  of  the 
good,  the  ruler  of  the  world  and  of  all  action." 
And  Ahura  answers  him :  "  Guardian  am  I  and 
creator,  preserver  am  I  and  all-knowing,  and  I  am 
the  holiest  spirit — these  are  my  names." 

A  practical  monotheism  is  here  attained,  one 
which  is  not  lowered  hy  the  fact  that  hosts  of  higher 
and  lower  spirits  surround  the  throne  of  this  god, 
who,  like  the  biblical  angels,  are  servants  of  his  will. 
Foremost  among  these  are  the  six  Amescha  Spenta, 
that  is,  immortal  helpers ;  on  the  one  side,  these  are 
personified  religious  conceptions,  such  as  "  the  best 
order,"  "  the  good  thought,"  "  the  desired  justice," 
"  the  perfect  wisdom,"  "  the  immortality,"  at  the 
same  time,  they  are  the  genies  and  patrons  of  earthly 
things,  such  as  earth,  metals,  cattle  and  plants.  In 
the  second  circle  about  Ahura  come  the  Yazatas, 
that  is  the  venerables;  among  them  we  find  the 
various  old  popular  gods:  the  genius  of  fire,  as  the 
speediest  of  the  sons  of  God,  then  Mithra,  the  old 
Indo-Germanic  god  of  light,  who  now  became  the 
mediator  between  God  and  man.  the  leader  of  souls 
and  the  judge  in  the  world  beyond ;  this  latter  attri- 
bute belongs  also  to  Sraoscha,  the  genius  of  obedi- 
ence. Beside  these,  in  the  later  priestly  system  which 
arranged  this  celestial  hierarchy  altogether,  several 
spirits  of  historical  heroes  and  saints,  particularly 
Zarathustra,  were  admitted.  Finally  a  third  circle, 
the  Fravaschis;  in  reality  this  is  the  circle  of  the 
souls  of  men  in  general,  then,  more  particularly,  the 


The  Religion  of  Zarathustra 

protective  spirits  of  the  pious,  forming  the  active 
army  of  Ahura  in  his  great  world-struggle.  Al- 
though Ahura  is  holy,  omniscient  and  omnipresent, 
he  is  not  omnipotent  because  his  power  is  hemmed 
by  the  "  inimical  spirit  "  Angromainyu  (Ahriman). 
This  Persian  devil  is  the  spirit  of  darkness  and  of 
death,  just  as  Ahura  Mazda  is  that  of  light  and  of 
life.  He  is  called  the  foolish  and  the  blind  who  acts 
first  and  thinks  afterward,  in  other  words,  he  whose 
actions  originate  in  chance  and  lack  reason.  He  is 
the  personification  of  everything  irrational,  injudici- 
ous, destructive,  of  all  the  evils  in  nature  and  the 
wickedness  in  humanity.  He  is  no  creature  of 
Ahura,  but  he  is  not  as  eternal ;  he  is  not  an  inde- 
pendent creator,  but  only  a  destroyer  of  the  good 
creation  of  Ahura.  He  is  the  cause  of  all  actual, 
present  evil  in  the  world,  but  the  question  wherein 
the  cause  of  him  is  to  be  found  remains  unanswered, 
just  as  in  the  case  of  the  biblical  devil. 

One  may  call  this  a  dualistic  world-view,  in  so 
far  as  the  actual  world  is  divided  between  the  gov- 
ernment of  a  good  god  and  of  his  wicked  counter- 
part, but  this  dualism  is  not  absolute,  for  as  this 
evil  spirit  was  not  from  the  beginning,  so  he  will  not 
remain  to  eternity.  The  solution  of  the  great  world- 
riddle.  How  is  the  evil  in  god's  creation  to  be 
explained?  is  not  sought  in  theoretical  speculation, 
but  rather  is  found  in  a  religious-teleological  con- 
ception of  the  events  in  the  world's  history.  Evil 
and  sin  are  here,  they  must  be  reckoned  with  in  the 

141 


Religion  and   Historic   Faiths 

actual  world,  but  tliey  ought  not  to  remain  here, 
they  ought  to  be  struggled  against  unceasingly,  and 
they  will  not  remain  here  for  the  great  world-strug- 
gle will  one  day  end  with  the  absolute  victory  of  the 
good  and  the  utter  rout  of  the  bad.  The  dualism 
of  these  two  opposing  principles  holds  only  of  the 
j)resent  world  of  time,  but  it  had  not  yet  been  in 
liiat  prehistorical  world  of  pure  spirits,  and  at  the 
end  of  the  world  period  of  six  thousand  years,  filled 
with  that  struggle  whose  central  and  turning  point 
is  the  revelation  of  Zarathustra,  it  will  not  be.  As 
his  word  of  truth  is  now  the  victorious  weapon  of 
the  champion  of  God  against  the  powers  of  false- 
hood and  of  death,  so  three  thousand  years  after 
him  the  miraculously-born  savior,  Saoshyant,  of  his 
seed,  will  appear  somewhat  like  his  returning  alter- 
ego  and  waken  all  the  dead  to  life.  Then  will  the 
immense  world-fire  melt  all  the  elements,  and  in  that 
heat  will  all  the  pious  painlessly  be  purified,  the 
wicked  punished  by  three  days  of  torture,  but  not 
destroyed,  for  they  too  emerge  from  the  fire  purified, 
while  Ahriman  and  his  demons  alone  will,  in  one 
last  decisive  struggle  with  the  heavenly  hosts,  suffer 
defeat  and  be  forever  exterminated.  In  this  new 
world,  then,  begins  an  endless,  blissful  life  of  puri- 
fied creatures  under  the  sole  rulership  of  the  good 
god,  Ahura  Mazda. 

True,  this  description  of  the  end  of  all  things 
occurs  in  a  later  writer,  the  "  Bundehesch,"  but  the 
underlying  thought  of  a  present  world-struggle  be- 

142 


The  Religion  of  Zarathustra 

tween  the  two  opposing  powers,  and  of  the  final 
victory  of  the  good  god  and  his  host,  dates  back, 
doubtlessly,  to  Zarathustra  himself.  That  thought 
is  the  kernel  of  his  religion,  which,  begotten  itself 
by  inner  and  outer  struggles  and  needs,  recognizes 
the  struggle  in  God's  cause  as  the  task  of  human 
living;  at  the  same  time,  it  is  the  guarantee  of  the 
hope  of  the  victory  of  the  courageous  champions 
who  believe  in  the  government  of  the  good  God. 

Not  only  concerning  the  end  of  all  things  in  the 
world,  but  also  concerning  the  fate  of  individual 
souls  in  the  world  beyond,  the  religion  of  Zara- 
thustra busied  itself  with  meaningful  thoughts.  Ac- 
cording to  the  twenty-second  Jasht,  the  soul  of  the 
pious  one  remains  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  body 
for  three  days  after  his  decease,  but  even  during  this 
time  there  is  the  premonition  of  the  coming  joys  of 
paradise.  Then  the  soul  arrives  at  Tschinwat,  the 
celestial  bridge  where  judgment  is  rendered.  The 
genius  of  righteousness  holds  the  scales  in  his  hand ; 
the  good  deeds  and  the  bad  deeds  are  placed  in  the 
pans  and  weighed  witlumt  respect  to  persons.  If 
the  good  deeds  weigh  heavier,  the  soul  may  pass 
over  the  bridge.  A  whiff  of  paradisaic  incense 
greets  the  soul  and  a  blooming  maiden  appears,  say- 
ing: "  I  am  thy  own  doings,  the  embodiment  of  thy 
good  thoughts,  words  and  works,  thy  pious  faith." 
Then,  accompanied  by  Mitlira,  the  soul  enters  into 
the  threefold  paradise  of  good  thoughts,  words,  and 
works,  and  finally  into  Alnira's  world  of  light,  the 

M3 


Religion  and  Historic   Faiths 

world  of  tlic  good  spirits.  The  souls  of  the  god- 
less, on  the  otlicr  hand,  are  dragged  by  the  demon  of 
death  into  the  threefold  hell  and  finally  into  tlic 
gloomy  abode  of  Ahriman. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  here  older  notions  of  Indo- 
Germanic  animism  are  underlying,  but  in  the  religion 
of  Zarathustra,  they  ha\  e  been  worked  over  in  the 
sense  of  their  moral  fundamental  thought,  that  each 
individual  is  responsible  not  only  for  the  righteous- 
ness of  his  own  action,  but  also  for  the  truthfulness 
of  his  speech  and  ft)r  the  purity  of  his  thought. 

Looking  for  a  moment  at  the  ethics  of  the  re- 
ligion of  Zarathustra,  we  must  distinguish  between 
the  original  sound  principles  and  the  later  mutila- 
tions through  the  mass  of  petty  observances.  As 
was  said  before.  Zarathustra  recognized  that  the 
task  of  man  consisted  in  an  active  alliance  with  the 
good  God  in  order  to  aid  the  cause  of  the  good  and 
to  fight  against  all  the  destructive  powers  of  evil. 
Inasmuch  as  all  healthy  living,  growing  and  flour- 
ishing, in  the  world  of  nature  and  of  man,  belongs 
to  the  realm  of  Ahura  and  serves  his  cause,  it  is 
the  duty  of  the  pious  not  to  hem  life  by  ascetic  prac- 
tice, but  to  aid  it  by  industrious  employment  of  every 
pfjwer  in  the  work  of  civilization.  The  work  of 
raising  cattle  and  of  tilling  the  soil  was  looked  upon 
as  particularly  deserving  religious  performance; 
"  Who  sows  corn,  sows  holiness,"  for  the  fruitful 
earth  belongs  to  Ahura  and  the  barren  earth  to  the 
demons.     So,  too,  a  healthy  family  life  in  which 

144 


The   Religion  of  Zarathustra 

many  children  are  born  and  brought  up  to  be  thor- 
ough men  and  women,  was  a  reHgious  obhgation ; 
illegitimate  practices  were  frowned  upon  and  un- 
natural enjoyments  were  sins  unforgivable,  truly 
the  work  of  the  devil.  Alongside  of  purity  of  body 
and  of  soul,  of  temperance  and  industry,  which  make 
personal  life  sound  and  thorough,  the  social  virtues 
most  highly  praised  were  truthfulness,  fidelity,  and 
righteousness,  beneficence  and  benevolence.  The 
principal  blasphemies  which  were  condemned  were 
lying  and  cheating,  violation  of  oaths,  contraction 
of  debts  (because  it  could  never  pass  oflf  without 
lyi'i.^'').  greed  and  hard-hcartedness.  Truthfulness 
and  fidelity  were  the  two  qualities  of  those  Persian 
believers  in  the  Zarathustra  faith  which  struck  the 
Greeks  as  especially  praiseworthy.  However,  this 
sound  ethics  was  badly  deformed  by  the  ritualistic 
law  code  of  the  priests  as  we  know  it  in  the  "  Vendi- 
dad,"  the  priests'  laws  of  the  Avesta.  which  bears 
the  same  relation  to  the  ancient  Gathas  that  the 
priestly  law  in  the  books  of  Moses  does  to  the 
prophets  ami  the  psalms. 

Merely  as  an  example.  I  will  cite  some  of  this 
senseless  casuistry.  In  order  that  none  of  the 
sacred  elements  be  defiled,  the  burial  or  the  burn- 
ing of  the  dead  was  avoided,  hence  the  corpses  were 
exposed  on  hills  or  towers  to  be  eaten  up  by  wild 
animals  or  birds;  this  horrible  practice  was  prob- 
ably taken  over  from  the  Scythians.  The  ritual 
nonsense   was  mainly   elaborated  by   the  medium 

145 


Religion  and   Historic  Faiths 

priests,  the  "magi."  There  were  endless  injunc- 
tions as  to  how  one  must  act  in  case  he  or  she 
invohintarily  became  unclean  by  physical  functions 
or  conditions,  or  by  contact  with  an  unclean  thing, 
particularly  a  dead  body;  for  every  such  defile- 
ment, even  of  the  most  harmless  kind,  there  was  a 
ceremonial  process  of  purification  and  atonement, 
whereto  it  was  necessary  to  call  the  priests  and  they 
— this  being  the  heart  of  the  matter — were  to  be 
well  paid ;  in  case  of  the  refusal  of  such  atonement 
a  certain  number  of  lashes  were  substituted  and  the 
number  of  these  for  each  of  the  different  misde- 
meanors can  only  be  understood  as  the  spawning  of 
some  mad  priestly  fantasy.  Enough  of  these  signs 
of  a  sad  degeneration  which  that  originally  pure 
and  sound  religion  and  ethics  of  Zarathustra  suf- 
fered at  the  hands  of  the  Oriental  priest-schools. 

I  will  not  detail  the  varying  fortunes  of  the 
religion  of  Zarathustra  from  the  time  when  it 
became  the  state  religion  of  the  Persian  realm  and 
underwent  all  its  political  changes,  to  the  day  when 
it  succumbed  to  the  assault  of  Mohammedanism. 
Yet  I  would  call  your  attention  to  the  Mithra  cult, 
wliich  grew  out  of  the  Persian  religion  and  played 
an  important  role  as  the  rival  of  Christianity  in  the 
first  century  of  our  era,  in  the  Roman  Empire.  As 
far  back  as  the  Avesta,  Mithra,  the  old  Indo-Ger- 
manic  god  of  light,  was  one  of  the  semi-divine 
Yazatas.  He  is  even  called  the  strongest  of  them, 
the  one  whom  Ahura  makes  equally  great  as  him- 

146 


The  Religion  of  Zarathustra 

self,  the  one  who  is  set  up  as  the  preserver  of 
the  whole  world.  With  the  spread  of  the  Persian 
realm  to  Babylon  and  also,  later,  to  hither  Asia, 
there  arose  a  mixture  of  religion  made  up  of  old 
Iranian  beliefs,  Babylonian  myths,  Syrian  obser- 
vances, and  finally,  even  Hellenistic  speculation;  all 
of  these  taken  together  were  the  elements  of  the 
Mithra  religion.  It  was  known  to  the  Romans  as 
early  as  the  days  of  Pompey  in  Cilicia  and,  in  the 
centuries  that  followed,  it  spread  over  the  whole 
Roman  Empire,  with  Rome  as  its  main  seat. 

The  kernel  of  the  faith  and  forms  of  worship 
was  Mithra  as  the  "  mediator "  between  heaven 
and  earth.  Legend  tells  of  his  birth  out  of  a  rock 
and  of  the  adoration  of  the  shepherds  in  the  presence 
of  the  young  sun-hero.  This  semi-identification  with 
the  sun-god  is  indicated  by  the  legend  which  makes 
him  the  victor  in  a  struggle  with  the  sun-god,  where- 
upon conqueror  and  conquered  enter  into  a  firm  alli- 
ance. Best  known  is  the  legend  of  Mithra's  sacrifice 
of  the  mythical  bull,  visualized  on  countless  religious 
reliefs;  out  of  the  body  of  the  bull  went  forth  all 
herbs  and  plants,  especially  the  corn  for  bread  and 
wine — a  cosmogonic  myth  of  greatest  antiquity.  It 
is  further  narrated  that,  during  a  drought,  Mithra 
burst  a  rock  by  the  shooting  of  an  arrow,  and  a  foun- 
tain of  water  gushed  from  the  fissure,  a  miracle  simi- 
lar to  that  told  of  Moses  in  the  desert.  After  a  last 
meal,  which  he  celebrates  in  the  company  of  Helios, 
the  sun-god,  and  his  other  comrades  of  battle,  the 

147 


Religion  and   Historic  Faiths 

legend  makes  the  hero  ascend  in  a  fiery  chariot  to 
heaven,  where  he  now  dwells  with  the  gods. 

Thus,  Mithra  is  the  divine  messenger  and  medi- 
ator sprung  from  the  deity,  who  participated  in  the 
formation  of  the  world  and  who  constantly  pre- 
serves the  world-order  by  his  combat  with  its  ene- 
mies; he  is  the  divine  prototype  and  the  powerful 
assistant  of  battling  humanity,  the  protector  of  the 
good  here  and  their  rewarder  beyond.  He  accom- 
panies the  souls  of  his  faithful  servants  upon  their 
dangerous  journey  through  the  seven  heavenly 
spaces  whose  gates  open  only  for  those  of  the  sancti- 
fied who  know  the  sacred  names  and  formulas. 
(This  will  remind  you  of  the  Babylonian  myth  of 
Istar's  journey  to  hell  and  the  Egyptian  myth  of 
the  soul's  journey  with  Ra  through  the  nether 
world.)  In  each  of  these  heavenly  spheres,  the 
soul  lays  aside  that  portion  of  its  being  which  it 
had  received  from  that  particular  planetary  spirit ; 
finally,  freed  from  all  remnants  of  the  earth,  the 
pure  soul  arrives  in  the  eighth  heaven  where  it  is 
welcomed  by  the  blessed  spirits  as  a  son  who  has 
returned  to  his  father's  home  after  a  long  journey. 
At  the  end  of  the  world,  however,  Mithra  (here 
taking  the  place  of  the  Iranian  Saoschyant)  will 
come  down  again  and  resurrect  men;  then  will  he 
hold  the  general  judgment,  then  will  the  sacrifice  of 
the  primeval  bull  be  repeated ;  and  of  its  fat,  mixed 
with  wine,  he  will  prepare  the  miraculous  draught 
which  shall  give  immortal  life  to  the  resurrected 


The  Religion  of  Zarathustra 

upon  the  new  earth.  The  congregation  of  the 
Mithra-faithful  had  a  complete  organization;  into 
seven  grades  of  sanctity,  they  were  divided,  and 
these  were  named  "  raven,"  *'  griffin,"  "  soldier," 
"  lion,"  "  Persian,"  "  sun-runner,"  "  father."  The 
three  lowest  grades  were  novices ;  their  position  was 
one  of  service  without  the  privilege  of  participation 
in  the  sacraments,  which  privilege  belonged  only  to 
the  upper  grades  of  the  lions.  At  the  head  stood 
the  fathers,  and  head  among  them,  "  the  father  of 
fathers  " ;  he  was  the  grand  master  of  all  the  sancti- 
fied and  to  him,  they  all  owed  respect.  Among  them- 
selves the  comrades  of  the  congregation  used  the 
title  "  brother."  Acceptance  into  the  congregation 
and  entrance  into  the  higher  grades  were  marked  by 
various  acts  of  sanctification  called  "  sacraments." 
Among  these  was  immersion,  which  (according  to 
the  statement  of  Tertullian,  the  church  father)  rep- 
resented "  a  picture  of  the  resurrection  " ;  there  was 
also  confirmation  by  marking  the  forehead  of  the 
believer  with  a  mark  (it  is  uncertain  whether  this 
was  anointment  or  branding) ;  there  was  also  a 
sanctification  of  hands  and  tongue  by  honey ;  finally, 
the  communion  of  the  sacramental  meal  at  which 
bread  and  a  cup  (uncertain  whether  filled  with 
water  or  wine)  was  presented  and  sanctified  by  the 
priest  through  a  recital  of  sacred  formulae.  This 
holy  meal  was  one  partially  commemorating  the 
last  meal  of  Mithra  before  his  journey  to  heaven, 
and  partially  a  means  of  assuming  divine  powers  and 

149 


Religion   and   Historic  Faiths 

a  guarantee  of  eternal  life.  In  one  Mithra  liturgy 
extant,  the  process  of  sanctification  which  brings  the 
believer  into  community  with  the  god  is  represented 
as  a  symbolic-mystic  dying  and  re-birth  by  which 
life  is  imparted  and  salvation  completed;  tlie  sancti- 
fied called  themselves  "reborn  for  eternity"  (rciiatiis 
in  cctcrnum).  Besides  which,  the  administration 
of  the  sacraments  was  accompanied  or  introduced 
by  castigations  and  dramatic  scenes  of  terror  which 
symbolized  the  struggle  w^ith  the  dark  powers  of 
death,  whereby  the  courage  of  the  candidate  was 
tested. 

The  acts  of  w'orship  were  the  priests'  concern,  and 
the  priests  were  chosen  from  the  "  fathers."  The 
"  father  of  fathers  "  was  also  the  high  priest  and 
exercised  a  supervision  over  all  the  comrades  of  the 
cult  in  a  city ;  there  does  not  seem  to  have  been 
any  uniform  church  organization  taking  in  all  the 
congregations.  The  regular  service  of  the  priests 
consisted  in  a  daily  prayer,  thrice  repeated,  to  the 
sun,  connected  with  various  sacrifices  and  offerings 
as  well  as  the  singing  of  hymns  with  musical  ac- 
companiment. There  was  a  special  service  every 
week,  which  took  place  on  Sunday,  the  day  of  the 
sun-god.  The  principal  festival  of  the  year  was 
that  of  the  renascence  of  the  "  unconquered  sun- 
god  "  (the  winter  solstice  from  which  the  sun,  that 
is,  the  day,  grows  again)  ;  this  day  was  celebrated  in 
every  congregation  as  a  sacred  festival  of  joy. 

The  attractiveness  of  the  Mithra  cult  is  easy  to 
150 


The  Religion  of  Zarathustra 

understand.  The  community  of  brothers  gave  to 
each  one  moral  support  and  strengthened  his  cour- 
age in  the  struggle  for  existence,  for  did  they  not 
feel  themselves  all  to  be  comrades  of  the  army  of 
that  god  who  stands  for  and  aids  his  brave  cham- 
pions and  guarantees  blissful  life  in  the  world  be- 
yond, through  the  mysterious  rites?  The  mixture 
of  nature-myths  with  ethical  ideas  and  mystical 
rites  was  of  a  piece  with  the  period  of  syncretism 
and  of  mysteries;  the  manly  martial  character,  the 
heritage  from  their  Iranian  origin,  api)€aled  espe- 
cially to  the  Roman  legions.  Even  the  favor  of 
the  Emperor,  sensing  a  support  of  the  Caesar  cult 
therein,  was  not  missing.  But  this  very  accommo- 
dation to  the  manner  of  thinking,  and  the  needs  of 
heathen  peoples  and  their  ruler,  was  the  weakness 
of  this  religious  mixture,  as  against  Christianity, 
which  held  its  moral  monotheism  pure  of  all  con- 
cessions to  heathen  naturalism  and  polytheism :  not 
a  mythical  sun-hero,  but  a  divine-human  ideal  figure 
as  savior  was  worshipped  by  Christianity,  and  it 
opened  the  portals  of  salvation  not  only  to  men. 
but  to  all,  without  distinction,  even  to  women  and 
children.  This  difference  alone  sufficed  to  make  it 
appear  necessary  that  Christianity  should  win  the 
victory  over  the  Mithra  religion  wliicli  was  its  rival 
through  three  centuries ;  for  how  could  any  religion 
which  excluded  the  women  ever  have  conquered  the 
world  ? 

I  will  not  enter  into  a  closer  comparison  of  the 
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Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

two  religions.  In  sonic  details  the  parallel  must 
have  been  apparent  to  you.  It  is  still  a  question  in 
dispute  among  scholars  as  to  how  far  the  historical 
connections  and  dependence  on  the  one  side  or  the 
other,  is  revealed  by  them,  and  we  shall  do  best  if 
we  withhold  our  judgment  for  the  present.  Who- 
ever desires  greater  familiarity  with  details,  I  refer 
to  Cumonts's  excellent  presentation,  upon  which 
this  brief  sketch  of  the  Mithra  religion  is  based. 


152 


IX 

BRAHMANISM    AND    GAUTAMA   BUDDHA 

The  Indians  were  the  closest  race-relatives  of  the 
Iranians  about  whom  I  spoke  in  the  last  lecture; 
their  religious  development,  however,  was  of  an  en- 
tirely different  character.  In  the  beginning,  during 
the  wandering  of  the  conquering  races  into  the  valley 
of  the  Indus,  the  Indians  also  were  a  people  loving 
battle  and  action,  loving  the  world  and  its  pleasures, 
whereof  the  old  songs  of  the  Rig- Veda  give  clear 
testimony.  All  this  changed  after  they  had  settled 
in  the  exuberant  hot  valley  of  the  Ganges.  The 
climate  was  enervating  and  paralyzing  in  its  effect. 
Over  this  people,  who  once  rejoiced  in  action,  there 
came  a  weariness,  an  inclination  to  rest  and  ci^n- 
templation,  to  dreaming  and  brooding.  Tiicre  was 
added  to  this  the  increasing  strictness  of  the  separa- 
tion of  classes  into  closed  castes:  the  warrior  caste 
from  which  emerged  the  small  generations  of  rulers 
who  exerted  a  despotic  sway ;  the  priest  caste  who 
increasingly  monopolized  the  public  service  of  God, 
developing  a  complicated  and  pedantic  ritual  of  sac- 
rificial ceremonies  and  prayer  fornuilT  and.  by  com- 
bination with  the  ruling  nobles,  exerted  a  paralyzing 

153 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

pressure  upon  the  spiritual  life  of  the  people.  In 
the  life  of  the  Indian  people,  there  were  lacking  great 
common  purposes  and  higher  ideals  which  would 
have  lent  a  valuable  content  and  powerful  motives 
to  their  acts.  The  result  of  that  is  always  a  ten- 
dency to  life-surfeit,  to  world-weariness  and  to  pes- 
simistic and  nihilistic  judgment  of  the  world. 

Thus  it  was  with  the  Indians.  In  many  circles, 
not  alone  among  the  priests  but  even  in  the  warrior 
caste,  there  was  much  brooding  over  the  truth  in 
the  popular  belief  in  God.  The  question  was  asked  : 
Are  not  these  many  gods,  after  all,  only  various 
names  for  the  divine  which  is  one?  To  the  ques- 
tion what  this  one  might  be,  the  philosophers  an- 
swered :  We  find  it  in  ourselves,  when  we  disregard 
anything  which  is  especially  personal  opinion  and 
wish,  and  regard  only  that  being  which  is  universally 
homogeneous,  unchangeable  and  spiritual.  This 
Atman,  our  innermost  self,  is  one  with  the  self  of 
the  world,  the  world-spirit.  But  the  priests  said  the 
highest  in  the  world  can  only  be  Brahma,  for  (ac- 
cording to  an  old  Indo-Germanic  notion)  prayer 
and  sacrifice  have  the  power  to  move  even  the  gods 
as  well  as  to  hold  heaven  and  earth  together.  Then 
both  parties  agreed  that  the  power  of  prayer  and 
the  world-soul,  the  Brahma  and  the  Atman,  were 
finally  one  and  the  same  divine  original  being. 

The  priests  then  differentiated  between  this  im- 
personal Brahma  and  the  personal  Brahma,  the 
highest  god,   the  personification  of  priestly  power 

154 


Brahmanism  and  Gautama  Buddha 

and  dignity.  When  the  question  of  the  origin  of 
the  world  out  of  this  divine  original  being  was 
asked,  they  answered  that  all  particular  beings  are 
emanations  from  the  original  being  and  return 
again  to  him,  just  as  the  spider  has  its  threads  go 
out  of  itself  and  then  draws  them  back  into  itself, 
or  as  the  sparks  fly  up  out  of  the  fire  and  fall  back 
into  it.  Others,  however,  thought  that  because  the 
world-spirit  was  the  only  true,  simple  and  un- 
changeable being,  there  could  be  no  reality  to  a  world 
of  the  many  and  the  changeable;  such  a  world  had 
merely  a  seeming  existence,  a  dream-picture  which 
the  deception  of  Maya  mirrored  to  our  ignorance  as 
though  it  were  reality.  That  is  the  same  abstract 
monism  or  pantheism  which  we  find  among  the 
Greek  philosophers  of  the  Elcatic  school  (Xen- 
ophanes,  Parmenides)  ;  such  speculation  naturally 
could  never  become  popular  anywhere.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  na'iver  notion  of  the  world,  as  an 
emanation  from  Brahma,  lent  itself  as  a  connecting 
link  with  the  doctrine  of  the  transmigration  of  souls 
rooted  in  the  belief  of  the  people.  This  doctrine  is 
connected  with  the  ancient  and  universal  animistic 
notion  of  the  capacity  of  souls  to  find  new  embodi- 
ment. While  the  manner  of  reincarnation  is  either 
arbitrary  or  accidental  in  animistic  popular  faiths, 
in  the  Brahmanic  system,  it  is  regulated  acc(^rding 
to  the  moral  law  of  retribution :  every  man  has  had  a 
certain  number  of  lives  before  his  present  existence, 
and  everything  which  he  now  experiences,  either  of 

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Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

fortune  or  misfortune,  is  the  fruit  of  his  previous 
acts  in  past  existences,  just  as  his  present  merits  or 
faults  are  the  seed  out  of  which,  later,  there  will 
grow  for  him  a  better  or  a  worse  existence;  for  his 
soul  will,  in  the  future,  enter  into  a  higher  grade  of 
living  being  (either  a  more  noble  caste  or  a  super- 
human being)  or  it  will  descend  to  one  of  lower 
grade,  down  to  the  lowest  and  vilest  of  animals. 
According  to  this,  the  whole  of  life  is  spun  in  an 
untearable  net  of  causality,  the  moral  linking  of 
guilt  and  fate.  Inasmuch  as  this  linking  reaches 
out  beyond  the  present  life,  death  itself  brings  no 
release;  death  leads  but  from  the  sorrowful  pres- 
ent existence  into  a  new  and  perhaps  still  more 
sorrowful  one.  Thus  arises  the  question  about 
which  finally  all  the  poetizing  and  the  thinking  of 
the  world-weary  Indian  turns :  How  can  man  tear 
himself  loose  from  this  endless  cycle  of  births  with 
its  endless  change  of  ever-new  sorrows? 

Many  sought  the  solution  in  stern  asceticism,  rip- 
ping themselves  loose  from  all  the  life  of  the  world, 
in  a  withdrawal  to  the  solitariness  of  the  for- 
est hermit;  by  suppression  and  castigation  of  the 
body,  they  hoped  to  kill  it  and  free  the  spirit  from 
the  sensual  world.  Others,  however,  thought  this 
an  insufficient  means  of  salvation,  beyond  which  the 
truly  wise  man  could  rise  by  a  knowledge  of  the 
all-one  being,  Brahma,  and  of  the  simple  seeming, 
the  nothingness  of  particular  existence,  even  of 
one's  own  self ;  only  he  who  has  risen  to  this  height 

156 


I 


Brahmanism  and  Gautama  Buddha 

of  knowledge  is  forever  released  from  the  cycle  of 
world-whirling.  "  For  him  who  searching  finds  all 
beings  in  his  own  self,  for  him  error  disappears  and 
all  suffering  is  gone."  Even  though  his  external 
life  does  last  a  little  while  longer,  as  the  potter's 
wheel  still  rolls  on  though  it  is  no  longer  driven,  so 
for  him  who  is  a  "  self-conqueror,"  for  him  who 
has  once  pierced  the  deception  of  Maya,  there  i^  the 
certainty  that  after  the  death  of  his  body,  his  life- 
spirits  can  no  more  go  forth  to  new  births  but  "  he 
is  Brahma  then,  and  into  Brahma  is  he  merged." 
"  As  streams  flow  and,  disappearing  in  the  ocean, 
lose  their  name  and  form,  thus  saved  from  name  and 
form  the  wise  man  enters  into  the  one  eternal 
spirit."  That  is  the  Brahman  salvation,  achievable 
through  withdrawal  from  the  world  and  the  acquisi- 
tion of  philosophic  knowledge,  naturally  possible 
only  to  those  few  who  are  able  to  philosophize. 

Among  the  Indians  who  sought  salvation  during 
the  sixth  century  B.C.  was  a  young  nobleman  (son 
of  a  prince?)  of  the  house  of  Sakyas  in  Kapilavastu ; 
he  who  thus  appeared  was  Gautama,  with  the  sur- 
name Buddha,  meaning  the  enlightened,  and  he 
became  the  founder  of  the  Indian  religion  of  salva- 
tion. Because  the  story  of  his  life  in  Indian  tradition 
has  such  a  dense  mass  of  legends  growing  about  it, 
recent  supposition  would  have  it  that  Gautama  was 
not  a  person  of  history,  but  a  mythical  sun-hero 
(Senart.  Kern)  but  that  is  an  exaggerated  skeptic- 
ism.    The  historical  character  of  Gautama  is  as 

^57 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

little  to  be  doubted  as  that  of  Jesus,  even  though 
naturally,  in  both  cases,  that  which  is  historical  can 
scarcely  be  differentiated  in  detail  from  that  which 
has  been  painted  over  the  original  picture  by  pious 
story-telling.  I  will  tell  you  the  story  of  the  life 
of  Gautama  as  it  appears  in  the  traditional  legendary 
form,  and  you  will  be  able  to  see  for  yourselves  how 
much  is  historical  and  how  much  is  simply  legend. 
I  am  going  to  base  it  mainly  on  the  northern  Budd- 
histic biography,  "  Lalita-Vistara,"  after  the  French 
translation  of  Foucaux:  as  early  as  65  a.d.^  this 
book  had  been  translated  into  Chinese,  and  there- 
fore, without  doubt,  had  been  written  before  the 
birth  of  Jesus  and,  in  any  event,  before  the  compila- 
tion of  our  Gospels.  This  is  to  be  noted  because 
of  the  remarkable  points  of  contact  between  the 
Buddhistic  and  the  Gospel  legends. 

The  biography  of  Gautama  begins  before  his 
birth  with  his  heavenly  pre-existence.  It  tells  how 
the  "  great  man  "  existing  in  heaven  listened  to  the 
urging  of  the  gods  and  decided  to  become  a  savior 
of  men;  he  would  go  down  to  the  world  of  earth 
and  be  born  of  woman.  He  chose  as  his  mother 
the  pious  Queen  Maya,  the  wife  of  King  Suddho- 
dana  of  Kapilavastu.  It  is  further  told  that  this 
woman  took  leave  of  her  husband  for  a  period  of 
time  and  for  the  sake  of  pious  practices  retired  into 
solitude.  Then  it  occurred  that,  while  adorned 
with  flowers  and  resting  in  a  grotto,  she  dreamed 
that  she  saw  the  heavenly  Buddha  in  the  shape  of 

158 


Brahmanism  and  Gautama  Buddha 

a  white  elephant  enter  into  her  body.  She  told  this 
dream  to  her  husband  and  he  consulted  the  inter- 
preters of  dreams  concerning  it;  the  latter  answered 
that  either  a  great  prince  or  a  savior  of  the  world 
was  about  to  be  born.  Ten  months  after  this 
dream,  the  spotless  and  unspotting  Maya  gave  birth 
to  a  son  who  immediately  after  his  birth  cried,  with 
mighty  voice :  "  I  am  that  which  is  the  most  sublime 
and  the  best  in  the  world,  and  I  will  make  an  end 
of  all  suflfering."  Then  came  the  hosts  of  the 
heavenly  spirits  and  greeted  the  new-born  savior; 
the  earth  trembled,  heavenly  lights  appeared,  the 
deaf  heard  and  the  blind  saw,  and  the  pangs  ceased 
for  those  in  hell.  At  about  the  same  time,  the  pious 
Asita,  who  dwelt  as  a  hermit  in  the  Himalayas, 
noticed  a  remarkable  sign  in  heaven,  which  denoted 
that  a  great  king  had  been  born  as  a  savior ;  he  came 
down  to  Kapilavastu,  found  the  infant  in  the  royal 
palace,  and  by  the  mysterious  sign  recognized  that 
there  had  appeared  in  him  "  the  great  man  from 
heaven."  This  seeing,  he  wept.  When  asked  the 
reason  of  his  sorrow,  he  replied :  "  This  one  will 
teach  the  law  which  has  virtue  for  its  beginning, 
middle  and  end,  but  I  shall  not  live  to  see  his  work 
of  salvation,  therefore  do  I  weep."  When  the  boy 
Gautama  grew  up  he  put  his  teachers  to  shame  by 
his  wonderful  knowledge;  in  his  early  years  he  de- 
voted himself  to  pious  contemplation.  On  one  occa- 
sion, at  a  spring  festival  where  the  King  was  wont 
to  sink  the  first  furrow  with  a  golden  plow,  the  boy's 

159 


Religion  and   Historic   Faiths 

nurse,  while  gazing  at  the  spectacle,  forgot  about  the 
boy,  and  lost  him  from  her  sight.  After  a  long 
search,  his  father  found  him  sitting  under  a  fig  tree 
whose  shadow  remained  unmoved  from  over  him 
during  the  entire  day ;  round  about  him  sat  the  wise 
men,  with  whom  the  boy  was  discussing  spiritual 
things.  The  father  questions  him  in  surprise,  and 
Gautama  answers :  "  My  father,  put  aside  the 
plowing  and  seek  the  higher"  (seek  higher  pos- 
sessions). But  then  the  boy  does  return  to  the  city 
with  his  father,  accommodating  himself  in  externals 
to  the  customs  of  his  environment,  he  is  inwardly 
busy  with  the  thoughts  of  his  future  mission  of  sal- 
vation. Of  the  further  youth  of  Gautama  only  this 
is  told :  that  he  took  part  in  all  the  joys  of  the 
court;  that  he  was  the  superior  of  all  his  comrades 
in  knowledge  and  arts,  and  that  he  won  his  wife  by 
a  victory  in  the  games.  When  his  wife  presented 
him  with  a  son,  he  is  said  to  have  cried  out,  at  his 
birth :  "  This  is  a  new  and  strong  bond  which  I  shall 
have  to  break."  Even  now  there  rested  upon  him 
the  feeling  of  the  vanity  of  all  this  worldly  activity. 
The  particular  occasion  was  scarcely  necessary  by 
which,  according  to  the  legend,  his  determination  to 
withdraw  from  the  world  was  settled;  the  legend 
says  that,  while  on  a  pleasure  journey,  Gautama  met 
successively  an  old  and  infirm  man,  a  man  stricken 
with  mortal  disease,  a  dead  man,  and  a  hermit — at 
this  sight  of  humanity,  Gautama  was  overcome  by 
the  woe  of  the  world. 

i6o 


Brahmanism  and  Gautama   Buddha 

With  epic  breadth  and  many  a  pathetic  scene,  the 
legend  goes  on  to  describe  his  execution  of  the 
"  great  decision  of  renunciation."  Parents  and 
friends  and  wife  labored  in  vain  to  hold  him  back, 
but  all  their  pleading  made  no  impression.  In  the 
dead  of  night,  he  bade  his  sleeping  wife  and  child  a 
silent  farewell.  Mounted  on  a  horse,  accompanied 
by  only  one  servant,  he  left  the  city  secretly.  Soon 
he  sent  back  the  horse  and  the  servant  and  exchanged 
his  princely  garments  for  a  beggar's  dress.  At  first, 
he  followed  the  studies  of  two  Brahmanic  teachers, 
but  their  instruction  gave  him  no  satisfaction.  After 
two  years,  he  left  them  and  began  an  independent 
life  as  a  penitent;  thereupon,  five  other  penitents 
joined  with  him.  During  five  years,  he  lived  a  life  of 
strict  asceticism  and  went  so  far  in  self-castigation 
that  he  was  close  on  to  death.  Then  he  recognized 
that  this,  too,  was  not  the  right  way ;  he  gave  up  the 
life  of  asceticism,  he  ate  and  drank  again  like  other 
human  beings  and  his  former  comrades  and  disciples 
looked  upon  him  as  a  renegade  and  deserted  him. 
Thus  he  stood  entirely  alone  in  the  world,  separated 
from  his  family,  from  his  teachers,  from  his  pupils, 
alone,  and  with  the  burning  question  in  his  heart: 
How  can  I  become  free  from  the  sorrows  of  exist- 
ence? This  condition  of  a  lonesome,  doubting, 
seeking  and  struggling  soul  is  visualized  by  the 
legend  in  dramatic  scenes  of  demonic  temptations: 
Mara,  the  prince  of  pleasure  and  of  death,  tries  by 

cunning  of  every  kind  to  divert  the  saint  from  his 

i6i 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

path.  First,  he  had  the  frenzied  powers  of  the  ele- 
ments, the  storm-winds  and  the  waters,  the  fire  and 
the  rocks,  fall  down  upon  him,  but  at  the  feet  of 
Gautama,  their  weapons  changed  into  garlands  of 
flowers.  Then  the  wicked  one  tried  all  his  weapons 
of  pleasure.  First,  he  sent  his  voluptuous  daughter 
to  lead  the  saint  astray  by  her  charms,  but,  shame- 
facedly, she  had  to  confess  that  his  virtue  was 
unconquerable.  Finally,  the  greatest  temptation: 
Mara  promises  him  the  highest  earthly  power  and 
rulership  if,  in  return,  he  gives  up  his  unattainable 
spiritual  goal.  But  Gautama  pushes  him  aside  with 
the  words,  "  Though  thou  be  the  lord  of  pleasure 
thou  art  not  the  lord  of  truth,  the  knowledge  of 
which  I  shall  attain  despite  thee." 

Immediately  after  this  temptation,  the  legend  says 
Gautama  experienced  the  decisive  hour  of  his  en- 
lightenment. Under  a  fig  tree,  lost  in  quiet  contem- 
plation, the  light  of  knowledge  burned  within  him. 
He  recognized  the  four  fundamental  truths  upon 
which  salvation  rests:  (i).  All  life  is  suffering,  for 
it  is  a  constant  desire  that  is  never  stilled,  a  seek- 
ing of  what  never  can  be  attained,  a  possession 
constantly  in  fear  of  being  lost;  (2),  The  cause 
of  the  suffering  does  not  lie  outside  of  us,  but 
within  us,  in  our  thirsting  for  pleasure,  for  life,  for 
power;  (3),  Salvation  from  suffering  consists  in  the 
suppression  of  this  thirst,  of  the  will  to  live,  in  self- 
conquest,  in  the  "extinction"  of  desire,  Nirvana; 
and  finally,  (4),  The  way  to  this  goal  is  that  holy 

162 


Brahmanism  and  Gautama  Buddha 

path  of  eight  parts  whose  names  are  "  right  behev- 
ing,"  "  riglit  determining,"  '*  the  right  word,"  "  the 
right  deed,"  "  the  right  striving,"  "  right  hving," 
"  right  remembering,"  "  right  abstraction  " ;  we  will 
later  see  what  this  means. 

Through  this  revelation,  Gautama  became  the 
enlightened,  the  Buddha;  now  he  had  the  certainty 
that  he  had  escaped  the  blissless  cycle  of  constant 
births  to  sorrowful  existence.  He  spent  fifty  days 
more  on  the  sacred  spot  where  the  illumination  had 
come  to  him.  Much  in  doubt,  he  weighed  care- 
fully whether  he  should  hold  the  saving  truth  for 
himself  alone  or  proclaim  it  to  all  men,  whose 
coarse  sense,  shrouded  in  the  night  of  earthly 
activities,  would  scarce  be  able  to  see  the  deep  mys- 
terious truth.  Then  did  the  gods  themselves  ap- 
proach him  and  warn  him  of  little  courage  and  of 
much  doubt,  that  mercy  for  the  woe  of  men  de- 
manded that  he  proclaim  the  saving  tnith ;  thus 
emboldened,  he  decided  to  teach,  before  all  the  peo- 
ple, the  way  to  salvation. 

He  experienced  his  first  success  in  Benares  where 
he  found  his  five  comrades  of  the  penitential  period 
of  his  life;  they  approached  him  with  distrust  even 
now,  but  they  permitted  themselves  to  become  con- 
verted when  he  taught  them  that  the  life  of  bodily 
castigation  was  just  as  mistaken  as  the  life  of  pleas- 
ure, but  that  the  right  life  was  the  middle  path  of 
inner  self-conquest  built  upon  the  knowledge  of 
those    four    cardinal    truths.     Thereupon    Buddha 

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Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

preached  at  Benares  before  all  the  people  and 
wandered  about  the  entire  land  (the  Province  of 
Magadha)  preaching.  Everywhere  he  had  great  suc- 
cess. Rich  and  poor,  learned  Brahmans  and  simple 
people  from  among  the  mass  of  the  wretched  and 
the  heavy-laden,  hearkened  to  his  preaching  of  sal- 
vation, and  some  joined  him  as  disciples  while  others 
became  his  followers.  After  he  had  gathered  sixty 
disciples  about  him,  he  sent  them  out  one  by  one, 
as  wandering  preachers :  "  Go  forth  for  the  profit  of 
the  many,  through  sympathy  for  the  world,  preach 
the  glorious  doctrine  of  a  perfect  and  a  pure  life." 
From  among  his  disciples,  legend  has  selected  one 
exemplary  pair  called  the  disciples  of  the  right  and 
of  the  left,  the  one  superior  in  wisdom,  and  the 
other  in  miraculous  power;  also  a  favorite  disciple, 
Ananda,  a  relative  of  Buddha,  of  whom  it  is  said 
that  he  had  heard  most  and  best  remembered  what 
he  had  heard.  In  the  circle  of  the  disciples  not 
even  Judas  was  missing;  it  was  Dewadatta  whom 
the  wicked  one  used  to  insinuate  himself  into  the 
circle  of  the  disciples  and  cause  the  downfall  of 
Buddha.  We  learn,  also,  of  disputations  with 
Brahman  and  ascetic  opponents,  and  once  when 
they  challenged  Buddha  to  the  performance  of  mira- 
cles he  made  this  reply :  "  I  do  not  teach  my  pupils 
that  they  should  perform  miracles  before  the  people 
with  supernatural  power,  but  I  do  teach  them  this: 
Live  so  that  ye  hide  your  good  works  and  confess 
your   sins."     However,   this   did   not  prevent  the 

164 


Brahmanism  and   Gautama   Buddha 

pious  poetry  from  telling  of  the  most  remarkable 
miracles  performed  by  Buddha  in  order  to  shame 
his  enemies, — poetry  intended  for  the  edification  of 
the  faithful  but  of  no  further  interest  for  us. 

When  in  his  eightieth  year,  after  forty-five  years 
of  activity  as  a  wandering  preacher  (about  480  B.C.), 
Buddha  felt  that  his  end  was  near  he  gathered  his 
disciples  about  him  and  admonished  them :  "  Be 
vigilant  unceasingly,  walk  ever  in  holiness,  deter- 
mined ever  and  well-prepared,  preserve  your  spirit! 
He  who  wanders  ever  without  swerving,  faithful  to 
the  word  of  truth,  he  makes  himself  free  from  birth 
and  death,  he  forces  his  way  through  to  the  goal  of 
all  suflfering."  He  asks  of  them  that  they  ask  him 
if  anything  in  his  teaching  still  be  dark  to  them. 
When  all  of  them  are  silent  and  y\nanda  declares 
that  not  one  of  them  has  the  slightest  doubt  about 
Buddha's  teaching,  he  speaks  his  last  words :  "  All 
that  is  perishes ;  with  zeal  work  your  salvation." 
Thereupon  Gautama  entered  into  Nirvana,  a  storm 
arose  and  the  earth  shook  in  his  parting  hour, 
and  when  his  corpse  was  lifted  upon  the  decorated 
funeral-pyre,  it  caught  fire  and  burned  of  itself. 

Even  before  Buddha  died,  a  great  and  growing 
congregation  had  gathered  about  him.  Why  this 
great  success?  Answer:  He  preached  differently 
from  those  learned  in  the  sacred  writings  and  the 
ascetics;  he  did  not  seek  the  path  of  salvation  in 
learned  speculations  concerning  the  world-spirit, 
nor  in  unnatural  self-castigation,  but  the  one  thing 

165 


Religion  and   Historic   Faiths 

needful  for  all  and  possible  to  all,  he  held  to  be  the 
moral  self -conquest  and  the  unselfish  benevolence 
toward  all,  out  of  which  the  true  knowledge  comes 
of  itself.  He  did  not  deny  the  Brahman  gods  nor 
give  up  the  doctrine  of  transmigration  of  souls,  nor 
do  away  with  the  differences  of  caste,  but  he  did 
render  valueless  the  priestly  ceremonial  service,  the 
school  learning,  the  authority  of  the  Veda  and  the 
separating  differences  of  the  castes,  by  establishing 
as  fundamental,  moral  purity  and  goodness.  This 
building  up  of  something  new,  whereby  that  which 
is  old  falls  of  itself,  is  the  method  of  all  successful 
prophets. 

Although  Buddha  did  not  wish  to  be  a  social  re- 
former, as  has  often  been  thought,  yet  indirectly  he 
did  become  one  by  making  caste  religiously  unim- 
portant. He  said :  "  My  law  is  a  law  of  grace  for 
all,  my  law  makes  no  difference  between  the  high 
and  the  low,  the  rich  and  the  poor ;  as  water  purifies 
all  and  fire  consumes  all  and  the  heavens  have  space 
for  all."  Naturally,  Buddha  had  to  experience  that 
among  his  disciples  the  rich  were  but  few  while  the 
poor  flocked  to  him  in  hosts.  Hence,  his  saying : 
"  It  is  hard  to  be  rich  and  learn  the  way  (to  salva- 
tion)." "The  poor  man  fills  the  beggar-cup  of 
Buddha  with  a  handful  of  flowers  while  ten  thou- 
sand bushels  full  from  the  rich  man  cannot  fill  it ; 
through  the  whole  night  the  lamp  of  the  poor  woman 
burns,  while  the  lamps  which  the  rich  man  gives 
go  out."     On  one  occasion  Ananda,  his  disciple, 

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Brahmanism  and  Gautama  Buddha 

met  a  girl  of  the  most  despised  class  of  the  Tschan- 
dalas,  at  a  well  and  asked  her  for  a  drink  of  water ; 
she  is  afraid  to  give  it  to  him  for  fear  a  gift  from 
her  hand  will  make  him  unclean,  but  he  says :  "  My 
sister,  I  ask  not  after  thy  caste  or  thy  family ;  I  beg 
water  of  thee  if  thou  canst  give  it  to  me,"  She 
gives  him  the  water  and  Ananda  takes  her  as  the 
first  woman  in  the  new  congregation.  With  this 
ethical  and  universal  side  to  the  salvation-way,  the 
form  of  Buddha's  preaching  corresponds.  In  pub- 
lic places,  he  makes  addresses  and  holds  converse 
with  the  mob,  not  concerning  theological  problems 
or  questions  of  priestly  ritual,  but  concerning  the 
one  question  which  was  near  to  all  their  hearts : 
How  can  I  become  blest  ?  concerning  which  he  spoke 
in  simple  proverbs  and  in  pictures  and  parables 
easily  understood  by  all.  For  instance,  he  spoke 
of  the  healer  who,  in  order  to  heal  a  poisonous 
wound  must  give  man  pain  when  he  draws  out 
the  arrow,  but  then  heals  the  wounds  by  cura- 
tive herbs ;  or,  again,  of  the  congregation  which 
he  likens  to  the  sea  wherein  costly  pearls  and 
gruesome  monsters  are  close  together,  and  in  which 
all  streams  disappear  without  distinction.  Again : 
"  As  the  farmer  must  wait  for  the  sprouting  of  his 
seed  and  can  do  no  more  than  lead  the  water,  so 
must  the  disciple  wait  in  patience  for  the  time  of 
pure  salvation ;  meanwhile  keeping  his  life  disci- 
plined and  pure.  As  the  lotus  flower  rises  immacu- 
late from  the  waters  of  a  marsh,  so  can  the  saint 

167 


Religion  and   Historic   Faiths 

from  tlie  impurity  of  the  surrounding  world.  As 
the  deep  sea  is  quiet  and  clear,  so  is  the  peace  of  the 
wise  man  hearkening  to  truth." 

In  conclusion,  a  few  beautiful  sayings  from  the 
Dhammapada,  a  collection  of  sayings  comparable 
to  our  Sermon  on  the  Mount : 

"Man  gathers  flowers  and  inclines  toward  pleasure:  as 
the  floods  of  water  pour  over  a  village  in  the  night,  so  death 
comes  on  him  and  hurries  him  away,  the  destroyer  in  his 
power  forces  him  of  insatiable  desire.  Out  of  joy,  sorrow 
and  fear  are  born ;  out  of  love,  sorrow  and  fear  are  born :  he 
who  is  saved  from  rejoicing  and  from  loving  [the  attachment 
to  perishable  possessions],  for  him  there  is  no  pain,  whence 
could  fear  come?  The  treasure  that  is  buried  in  a  deep 
cavern  may  be  lost,  but  the  treasure  that  no  thief  can  steal 
is  gathered  through  love  and  piety,  temperance  and  self- 
restraint.  The  fool  chases  after  vanity,  he  is  deceived,  while 
the  wise  man  holds  seriousness  to  be  his  richest  treasure. 
Hate  is  never  overcome  by  hate,  that  is  an  eternal  rule. 
Whatever  an  enemy  does  to  an  enemy,  a  spirit  turned  toward 
doing  evil  makes  the  evil  only  worse.  Though  the  victor  in 
battle  may  conquer  a  thousand  times  thousands,  yet  is  he 
the  greatest  victor  who  conquers  himself.  Anger  should  be 
overcome  by  goodness,  lying  by  truth;  and  to  him  who 
begs  something  should  be  given  of  the  little  which  one  has: 
thus  does  one  enter  into  communion  with  the  gods.  We 
live  happily,  freed  from  hate  in  the  midst  of  haters,  free  from 
attack  in  the  midst  of  the  heart-sick,  free  from  care  among 
the  anxious,  happy  though  we  cannot  call  anything  our  own. 
Thus  do  we  become  like  the  blessed  gods." 

Finally,  a  few  polemical  sayings  against  the  ex- 
ternality of  the  Brahman  service  of  works : 

"Not  the  abstinence  from  fish  and  meat,  not  going  naked 
and  cutting  the  hair,  not  wearing  rough  garments,  and  not 
bringing  sacrifices  for  Agni,  can  make  him  pure  who  is  not 

i68 


i 


Brahmanism  and  Gautama  Buddha 

free  from  self-deception.  Thou  fool,  what  help  is  the  cutting 
of  hair,  or  the  garment  of  skins?  Your  low  desires  are  in 
you  and  you  make  your  outside  clean.  He  who  suffers  re- 
proaches without  guilt  bears  chains  and  molestation,  he  who 
prepares  a  strong  army  for  himself  by  patience  of  the  many, 
he  it  is  whom  I  call  a  Brahman.  He  who  has  overcome  the 
wicked  path  of  error,  he  who  has  forced  his  way  through  the 
waves  and  reached  the  shore,  rich  in  contemplation,  freed 
from  desire  and  hesitation,  he  who  is  liberated  from  existence 
and  has  found  Nirvana,  him  do  I  call  a  true  Brahman." 

These  sayings  are  all  quoted  after  the  transla- 
tion of  Rhys  Davids's  Buddhism  and  Oldenberg's 
Buddha. 


169 


X 


BUDDHISM 


In  my  last  lecture,  I  followed  the  legendary  tra- 
dition in  telling  of  the  life  of  Gautama  Buddha,  and 
by  a  number  of  examples,  I  tried  to  show  you  the 
popular  manner  of  his  preaching.  Now  we  must 
enter  a  little  more  in  detail  into  the  important  funda- 
mental thoughts  of  his  doctrine,  then  into  the 
organization  of  his  congregation,  and  finally  into 
the  ecclesiastical  development  of  the  Buddha  re- 
ligion in  India  and  in  other  lands. 

The  four  underlying  truths  on  which  Buddha's 
teaching  rests  have  been  mentioned.  They  are : 
(i)  That  all  life  is  suffering;  (2)  Concerning  the 
cause  of  suffering;  (3)  Concerning  the  dissipation 
of  suffering,  and  (4)  Concerning  the  way  to  the 
end  of  suffering.  The  first,  that  all  life  is  suffer- 
ing, was  practically  conceded  from  the  beginning 
by  the  world-weary  Indian,  and  it  serves  as  the 
varied  theme  of  countless  sayings  and  pictures. 
But  wherein  does  the  cause  of  the  suffering  lie? 
Primarily  in  the  "  thirst  "  for  pleasure,  power,  life 
anrl  happiness.  But  upon  what  does  this  insatiable 
desire  depend?     That  is  explained  by  the  teaching 

170 


Buddhism 

of  "  the  causal  connection  of  events."  The  last 
link  in  this  chain  is  "  not-knowing,"  namely,  the 
worthlessness  of  all  life  and  the  non-reality  of  the 
I ;  out  of  this  not-knowing  originate  the  desires 
("  tendencies  of  mind,"  Rhys  Davids),  out  of  them 
consciousness,  out  of  that  corporeity,  then  senses 
and  objects,  contact  and  feelings,  thirst  and  cling- 
ing (to  the  objects),  then  (new)  birth,  age  and 
death  in  one  endless  return  by  way  of  this  cycle. 
This  psychological  deduction  is  not  quite  clear  (it 
might  be  compared  to  Schopenhauer's  teaching 
that  individuation  originates  in  unconscious  will 
and  therewith  the  objectivation  of  the  will  in  con- 
sciousness). In  any  event,  this  much  can  be  recog- 
nized as  the  essential  sense,  that  the  desire  which  is 
rooted  in  the  not-knowing  is  the  cause  of  the  em- 
bodiment of  the  consciousness  in  ever-new  forms  of 
existence,  wherewith  the  "  how  "  of  this  future  be- 
coming is  always  conditioned  by  the  nature  of  the 
preceding  desire.  And  therein  consists  the  law  of 
causality  governing  the  world-process,  the  one  un- 
conditioned thing  in  this  world  of  all-conditioned 
eventuation. 

As  the  Brahman  saw  but  the  persistent  Being  in 
all  Becoming,  so  the  Buddhist  saw  in  all  seeming 
being  only  the  constant  becoming;  it  is  the  same 
opposition  which  we  find  in  Greek  philosophy  of 
the  Eleatics  (Parmenides)  to  Heraclitus:  in  the 
former  the  being  without  becoming,  in  the  latter 
becoming  without  being.     This  all-governing  law 

171 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

of  causality,  however,  is  not  a  personal  providence; 
there  is  no  such  thing  here,  for  Buddha  will  have 
none  of  the  world-spirit  of  the  Brahnians  and  the 
popular  gods;  though  he  does  not  deny  them,  they 
have  no  more  religious  importance  for  him  than  the 
gods  of  Epicurus.  But  we  must  not  think  here  of 
a  blind  power  of  fate,  a  Moira,  for  it  is  not  an 
external  law.  not  a  strange  power  which  rules  over 
men,  but  it  is  only  the  continuous  power  of  man's 
own  action,  his  "  karma."  This  necessity,  accord- 
ing to  which  each  one  reaps  what  he  has  sown, 
perhaps,  may  be  best  compared  with  the  law  of 
"  moral  order  "  in  the  sense  of  Fkhte's  philosophy. 
Naturally  one  presupposition  seems  inevitable,  that 
he  who  in  a  future  existence  receives  the  reward 
for  his  deeds,  either  in  the  present  or  in  previous 
existences,  must  be  the  same  one  who  was  the  doer 
of  those  former  deeds ;  in  other  words,  that  there 
must  be  accepted  a  continued  existence  of  the  soul 
as  the  persistent  subject  of  the  doing  and  the 
suffering  in  the  various  lives.  But  the  existence 
of  a  persistent,  substantial  soul,  in  the  change  of 
its  conditions,  is  the  very  thing  most  emphatically 
denied ;  what  we  call  soul  does  not  exist  in  reality, 
according  to  Buddhistic  teaching  which  seems  to  go 
back  as  far  as  Gautama  himself.  But  it  is  merely 
a  semblance,  a  name  for  the  temporary  grouping  of 
five  elements  (Skandhas)  namely,  corporeity,  feel- 
ings, ideas,  desires,  and  consciousness.  Behind 
this  group  of  phenomena  or  conditions,  there  is  no 

172 


Buddhism 

substance,  no  perpetual  I.  Various  pictures  are  used 
in  order  to  visualize  this  thought :  as  wagon  is  only 
the  name  for  the  combination  of  the  various  parts 
which,  grouped  together,  form  a  wagon,  so  Soul  is 
only  the  name  for  the  grouping  together  of  the  five 
elements  just  named ;  again,  the  soul  resembles  a 
flame  which  seems  to  be  an  existing  thing,  but 
which,  in  reality,  is  only  the  continuous  process  of 
ever-new  combustibles  being  consumed;  again,  the 
soul  is  like  a  stream  whose  semblance  of  being 
consists  in  a  perpetual  coming  and  going  of  ever- 
new  waves.  These  two  pictures  last  mentioned  are 
like  those  used  by  Heraclitus  (Panta  rei). 

This,  then,  is  the  Buddhistic  doctrine  of  the  soul 
which  is  expressly  put  forward  as  one  of  the 
cardinal  truths,  the  not-knowing  of  which  belongs 
to  the  supreme  illusions,  to  be  given  up  upon  enter- 
ing into  the  path  of  salvation.  Evidently  this 
question  comes  up :  If  there  be  no  real  soul,  how  can 
there  be  a  transmigration  of  souls?  How  can  the 
next  life-course  be  a  retribution  for  the  actions  in 
the  present  life-course  if  it  is  no  longer  the  same 
subject  who  acted  before  and  then  receives  the  re- 
ward? 7'he  Buddhists  themselves  declare  that  to 
be  an  inconceivable  mystery,  and.  in  fact,  there  is  no 
solution,  not  even  by  the  analogy  to  two  genera- 
tions, of  which  the  second,  although  it  consists  of 
entirely  different  subjects,  still  enters  into  the  her- 
itage of  the  rewards  ami  punishments  of  the  first. 
As  a  psychologicaJ  explanation,  one  could  only  say 

173 


Reliirion   and   Historic   Faiths 


to 


that  the  difficiihy  originates  in  a  colhsion  of  two 
(hfferent  kinds  of  motives.  The  one  is  the  thought 
of  retribution,  not  in  the  external  setting  of  a 
judicial  distribution  of  reward  and  punishments, 
but  in  the  deeper  form  of  the  inner  connection  of 
seed  and  harvest.  This  deep  true  thought  clothed 
itself  for  Butldha  in  the  traditional  notion  of  the 
transmigration  of  souls.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
ax  was  to  be  put  to  the  root  of  man's  egotistic  de- 
sire for  happiness  by  the  knowledge  of  the  illusion 
of  an  independent  I;  the  practical  demand  for  self- 
lessness clothed  itself  in  the  theoretical  form  of  the 
denial  of  any  real  self.  These  two  motives  enter 
into  an  opposition  logically  difficult  to  harmonize, 
but  they  do  combine  in  the  common  aim  at  ethical 
self-control. 

With  that  we  come  to  the  further  question  of  the 
"  way  of  salvation."  Here  we  must  differentiate 
between  the  general  way,  the  elementary  or  lay 
morals,  and  the  particular  way  of  him  who  is  pro- 
gressing to  perfection,  the  morals  of  the  monks. 
The  former  contains  beautiful  features,  universally 
valuable,  particularly  its  heartiness  and  purity,  its 
unselfishness  and  humane  spirit.  Not  external 
castigation  or  ritual  works,  but  purity  of  mind  from 
delusion  and  passion  have  the  emphasis.  "  Each 
one  is  the  cause  of  his  own  suffering  and  becomes 
free  from  it  through  himself;  purity  and  impurity 
are  matters  for  each  individual  himself;  no  one  can 
make    another    pure  " — a    principle    which    recalls 

174 


Buddhism 

Kant's  autonomy.  In  the  previous  pages  I  liave 
mentioned  other  beautiful  sayings,  such  as  that  of 
self-conquest  being  the  greatest  courage  and  of  the 
conquest  of  hate  through  love,  of  lying  by  truth. 
The  duties  are  summed  up  in  ten  commandments,  of 
which  the  first  five  hold  unconditionally  and  the 
other  five  are  recommended  merely  as  means  of 
assistance  to  virtue.  They  are :  (i),  Destroy  no 
life;  (2),  Take  no  strange  proi)erty;  (3),  Do  not 
lie;  (4),  Drink  no  intoxicating  drinks;  (5),  Ab- 
stain from  all  illegal  sexual  intercourse;  (6),  Do 
not  eat  at  the  wrong  time;  (7),  Use  no  wreaths  or 
salves;  (8),  Sleep  on  a  hard  couch;  (9),  Avoid 
dances,  music,  and  plays ;  ( ro).  Own  no  gold  or  sil- 
ver. Besides  these,  the  layman  should  celebrate 
the  three  monthly  holy  days  by  fasting  and  by  benev- 
olence to  the  people  of  the  order;  also  hold 
father  and  mother  in  honor  and  engage  in  an  honest 
business. 

This  ethics  for  the  laity  is  only  a  preliminar}'  to 
the  "  noble  path  of  salvation  "  which  leads  to  sanc- 
tity and  to  Nirvana.  In  order  to  enter  upon  this 
path,  one  must  become  a  monk.  For  such  a  one. 
the  commandments  of  the  lay  ethics  become  more 
strict.  The  counsels  given  in  the  last  five  com- 
mandments  become  obligatory;  the  commandment 
against  illegal  sexual  intercourse  becomes  a  com- 
mand to  abstain  from  all  sexual  intercourse ;  private 
ownership  altogether  is  not  permitted,  but  the  monk 
must  beg  all  of  his  nourishment ;  these  are  the  well- 

175 


Religion  and   Historic  Faiths 

known  monastic  oaths  of  celibacy  and  voluntary 
poverty.  The  life  of  a  monk,  however,  is  not  in 
itself  perfection,  but  merely  the  way  thereto,  like 
a  protecting  wall  behind  which  he  who  is  striv- 
ing for  perfection  is  protected  against  the  assaults 
and  dissipations  of  the  world.  The  final  and  really 
decisive  point  does  not  lie  in  any  external  conduct, 
but  in  the  inner  work  of  "  right  thinking  and  right 
self-contemplation." 

Such  pious  meditation  is  accurately  described  and 
four  grades  of  the  same  are  differentiated,  but  the 
boundary  lines  between  them  are  not  fixed.  The 
first  of  these  is  the  piercing  of  the  naive  illusions  of 
the  natural  man ;  then  comes  the  suppression  of  all 
sensual  and  selfish  affects ;  then  complete  apathy, 
and  finally  a  kind  of  ecstatic  consciousness  or  dis- 
appearance of  all  definite  ideas  in  a  dreaming 
consciouslessness  (which  is  the  summit  of  the  con- 
templation in  neo-Platonism).  This  abnormal  condi- 
tion, in  some  degree  an  auto-hypnotism,  does  not 
hold  as  the  rule,  but  is  rather  the  passing  excep- 
tion. The  rule,  however,  for  the  highest  grade 
of  meditation  is  absolute  peace  which  is  no  longer 
moved  by  external  stimuli  or  inner  struggle,  in 
which  a  full  peace  and  therewith  the  desired  bliss, 
the  Nirvana,  is  attained.  The  wise  man  who  has 
reached  this  stage  is  the  saint;  for  him  all  desire  is 
dead  and  therewith  the  root  of  all  new  births  is 
killed.  Nirvana  is  not  the  extermination  of  life  but 
rather  of  the  desire  or  will  to  live;  but  where  this  is 

176 


Buddhism 

killed  down  to  the  root,  there  the  cause  of  new 
incarnation  is  removed,  hence  the  certainty  of  the 
complete  cessation  of  individual  existence  after 
death — at  least  this  must  be  considered  the  logical 
consequence  of  the  above-described  doctrine  of  the 
soul  and  of  Karma ;  how  far  that  conclusion  was 
drawn  is  questionable.  That  Nirvana  in  any  event 
is  a  soul  condition  of  peace,  of  bliss,  attainable  here 
below,  is  apparent  from  many  passages ;  for  instance, 
"  the  disciple  who  has  laid  aside  all  pleasure  and 
desire,  he  who  is  rich  in  wisdom,  he  has  attained 
here  below  salvation  from  death,  rest.  Nirvana,  the 
eternal  place."  Into  the  mouth  of  one  of  the  disci- 
ples of  Buddha  this  saying  is  put :  "  I  do  not  ask  for 
death  nor  do  I  ask  for  life;  I  wait  until  the  hour 
comes  as  a  servant  who  expects  his  reward  with 
conscious  and  with  wakeful  spirit." 

The  question  whether  all  is  over  after  death,  for 
that  saint  who  has  already  attained  Nirvana,  is  said 
to  have  been  asked  of  one  of  the  first  pupils  of  the 
master,  but  the  report  says  that  he  refused  to  answer 
it  because  a  knowledge  thereof  is  of  no  service  for 
salvation.  The  positive  spirits  of  the  congregation 
knew  that  the  consequence  of  the  teaching  of  the 
unreality  of  the  soul  would  lead  to  a  denial  (^f  the 
further  existence  of  the  saint,  but  it  never  became 
the  official  doctrine.  The  stage  at  which  they 
rested  was  this:  tliat  nothing  concerning  the  mat- 
ter had  been  revealed :  the  direct  statement  that 
after  death  the  saint  is  no  more  was  censured  as 

177 


Religion  and   Historic  Faiths 

iincluirchly  thinking.  This  reticence  of  decision 
may  be  construed  in  favor  of  those  for  or  against 
it,  but  this  much  is  clear,  that  the  rehgious  desire 
was  merely  for  salvation  from  the  suffering  of  tran- 
sitoriness ;  whether  beyond  this  there  was  any  such 
thing  as  positive  being  or  whether  it  was  simply  a 
not-being  remained  undecided,  a  matter  of  religious 
indifference.  If  we  add  to  this  that  the  logical  con- 
sequence doubtless  leads  to  a  non-existence  after 
death,  the  judgment  is  justified  that  this  salvation  is 
only  negative,  a  liberation  from  the  evil  of  the 
world  without  substituting  any  positive  good.  This 
is  explainable  by  the  life-weariness  of  the  Indian  for 
whom  existence  itself  is  only  a  source  of  torture,  for 
whom  the  positive  purposes  of  life — acting,  striving 
and  hoping, — are  wanting;  with  such  pure  pur- 
poselessness  of  life,  the  balance  of  his  weal  and  woe 
must  naturally  yield  a  negative  result.  Hence  the 
negative  quality  of  this  doctrine  of  salvation  which 
corresponds  to  the  more  negative  and  passive  char- 
acter of  the  ethics.  Its  motive  is  not  so  much  the 
recognition  of  the  right  and  value  of  human  person- 
ality as  the  indifference  to  all  values,  the  condemna- 
tion of  individual  existence  itself  as  the  source  of 
all  evil ;  hence  there  is  sympathy  with  suffering 
beings,  but  there  is  no  energetic  activity ;  there  is  the 
killing  off  of  selfish  instincts,  but  not  the  building 
up  of  a  higher  self. 

There  is  a  negative  but  not  a  positive  content 
in  this   ideal   of   life.     Buddhistic  ethics   may  be 

178 


Buddhism 

summed  up  in  the  biblical  words  "  love  not  the 
world,  for  the  world  with  its  joys  perisheth."  In 
Buddhism,  this  remains  the  final  position,  while  the 
Bible  passes  on  from  negation :  "  But  he  who  does 
the  will  of  God,  he  remains  for  all  eternity,"  that  is, 
whoever  has  made  the  positive  purpose  of  the  whole, 
the  general  highest  good,  content  and  purpose  of 
his  life,  for  him  life  possesses  a  super-temporal  value 
and,  therewith,  the  guarantee  of  an  imperishable 
permanence,  even  though  that  is  beyond  our  con- 
ception. 

Another  question  arises  in  connection  with  this 
negative  quality  of  the  Buddhistic  object  of  salva- 
tion. The  Buddhist  worships  his  master  as  the 
bearer  of  salvation  and  its  exemplar,  the  omniscient, 
the  holy  and  the  perfect ;  but  as  such,  he  has  really 
entered  into  Nirvana,  actually  exists  no  longer,  or 
if  he  does,  it  is  only  in  that  mysterious  resting  being 
which  has  no  longer  any  connection  with  the  world 
of  time.  So  the  Buddhistic  congregation  has  a  his- 
torical founder  who,  although  he  is  the  object  of 
their  grateful  worship  and  edificatory  contempla- 
tion, is  not  really  a  substitute  for  the  belief  in  God 
which  is  lacking.  Tic  has  not  the  lasting  power  of 
salvation,  to  which  the  pious  spirit  might  lift  itself 
in  confidence  and  hope. 

The  religious  need  of  the  Buddhistic  church  was 
met.  in  this  ca.se.  in  remarkable  fashion.  The  doc- 
trine soon  appeared  by  which  the  coming  of  Gau- 
tama Buddha  was  only  one  of  countless  Buddha 

179 


Religion  and   Historic  Faiths 

appearances  which  are  repeated  in  every  age  of  the 
world  when  human  suffering  has  need  of  him.  Be- 
fore Gautama,  the  founder  of  the  congregation, 
there  are  supjx)sed  to  have  been  twenty-four  Bud- 
dhas,  and  concerning  some  of  them  both  names  and 
legends  are  reported.  After  Gautama,  other  Bud- 
dhas  will  follow,  and  concerning  these  future 
Buddhas,  it  is  believed  that  they  do  now  exist  in 
heaven  as  chosen  candidates  for  the  Buddha  dig- 
nity. The  next  of  these,  Maittreya,  so  runs  the 
tradition  in  the  Lalitavistara,  was  chosen  by  Gau- 
tama before  he  became  a  man,  and  was  designated 
as  his  successor  in  the  mission  of  salvation  (as 
"  Bodhisattva ").  His  picture  was  early  placed 
in  the  Buddhist  church  at  Ceylon  alongside  that  of 
Gautama,  as  an  object  of  worship.  Later,  other 
pre-existing  Bodhisattvas  in  heaven  were  added  to 
Maittreya,  spirit  of  the  good.  Such  were  particu- 
larly Mantusri,  the  spirit  of  wisdom,  and  Avaloki- 
tesvara,  the  spirit  of  power  and  providence.  The 
spirits  of  good,  wisdom  and  power  are  evidently 
nothing  more  than  the  attributes  of  the  one  highest 
spirit  whom  we  call  Go<l,  made  independent  (just 
as  the  Persian  archangels,  or  Amschaspans,  stand 
for  the  representatives  of  the  qualities  of  Ahura 
Mazda).  It  cannot  be  wondered  at  then,  that  in 
a  later  development  of  the  north  Buddhistic  church, 
all  of  these  Buddhas  and  Bodhisattvas  are  inter- 
preted to  be  the  forms  of  appearance  of  one  original 
Buddha  who  is  considered  "  the  self-existing,  eter- 

180 


Buddhism 

nal  being,  infinite  light  and  life,"  that  is  to  say,  God 
in  the  full  sense.  It  cannot  really  be  said,  then, 
that  Gautama  Buddha,  the  historical  founder  of  the 
congregation,  became  a  god  in  the  belief  of  his 
congregation;  but  he  is  held  to  be  the  latest  and 
most  important  appearance  of  the  eternal  spirit  of 
salvation  which  had  revealed  itself  before  him  and 
will  reveal  itself  after  him  repeatedly  in  new  forms. 
Involuntarily,  we  recall  the  Johannine  teaching  of 
the  divine  Logos  which,  even  before  its  appearance 
in  Jesus,  had  revealed  itself  as  the  light  to  men.  and 
after  Jesus  continued  to  reveal  itself  in  the  spirit  of 
the  congregation,  the  Paraclete,  which  finds  in  the 
apostles  and  the  prophets  instruments  of  its  contin- 
ued revelation.  Such  a  similarity  in  the  formation  of 
two  doctrines,  built  up  independently  of  one  another, 
might  well  serve  as  testimony  for  the  thinking  stu- 
dent of  history  that  we  are  here  dealing  not  with 
an  arbitrary  play  of  fantasy,  but  with  a  deep 
development  of  religious  series  of  thoughts,  rooted 
in  the  nature  of  the  religious  consciousness  and  of 
natural  needs. 

These,  then,  are  the  main  teachings  of  Buddhism. 
I  can  only  indicate,  in  brief,  its  further  formation 
and  development  as  a  church.  r>om  what  has 
already  been  said,  it  is  clear  that  the  monks  consti- 
tute the  kernel  of  the  Buddhistic  church,  but  Bud- 
dhism is  not  exclusively  a  religion  for  monks,  for 
the  Buddha  belief,  from  the  beginning,  offered  con- 
solatory and  educative  motives  to  that  congregation 

i8i 


Religion  and   Historic   Faiths 

of  lajTnen  wliicli  attached  itself  to  the  members  of 
the  order  and  formed  the  wider  circle.  Gautama 
Buddha  liimself  broke  the  first  ground  not  only  for 
the  spread  of  his  teaching,  but  also  for  the  organiza- 
tion of  the  monk  class.  He  prescribed  certain 
rules  of  discipline,  but  later  there  was  many  a  dis- 
pute as  to  how  far  these  strict  regulations  had  to  be 
obeyed  and  which  of  them  could  be  traced  back  by 
tradition  to  Buddha  himself  and  which  to  his  first 
pupils.  With  the  growing  wealth  of  the  monas- 
teries, there  came  lively  debates  and  controversies  as 
to  whether  the  commandment  which  forbade  all 
possession  of  money  had  to  be  taken  seriously,  a 
controversy  similar  to  that  known  to  us  in  the  his- 
tory of  Christian  monastic  orders,  especially  the 
Franciscans.  Concerning  acceptance  into  the  orders, 
this  much  may  be  said,  that  children  were  admitted 
into  the  novitiate  where  the  parents  had  given  per- 
mission ;  actual  acceptance  and  consecration  could 
only  take  place  after  the  twentieth  year,  and  was 
dependent  upon  the  consent  of  the  congregation. 
Among  the  monastic  oaths,  besides  those  of  chastity 
and  poverty,  was  one  forbidding  the  proclamation 
of  false  miraculous  powers.  This  was  done  be- 
cause the  power  of  performing  miracles  was 
thought  to  be  connected  with  full  saintliness  and 
so  some  one  might  perhaps  pretend  to  miraculous 
power  in  order  to  obtain  that  dignity  during  life. 
In  the  good  weather  periods  of  the  year,  the  monks 
wandered  about  with  their  beggar's  pots  which  they 

182 


Buddhism 

were  permitted  to  show  only  without  making  any 
request.  In  the  rainy  season,  they  gathered  to- 
gether in  enclosed  spaces ;  later,  in  great  monasteries 
founded  by  rich  patrons  and  surrounded  by  beauti- 
ful parks.  In  them  they  remained  together  for 
three  months  of  each  year,  and  during  this  time, 
there  were  regular  gatherings — they  can  scarcely  be 
called  services  of  God — for  pious  discussions  and 
for  confession.  On  such  occasions  all  the  rules  for 
moral  duties  and  monastic  discipline  were  read,  and 
at  each  point,  he  who  was  conscious  of  any  guilt 
was  obliged  to  confess  the  same  openly ;  in  case  of 
heavy  guilt,  expulsion  from  the  order  was  the  pen- 
alty, and  in  cases  of  unimportant  infractions  a 
lighter  sentence  of  repentance  was  imposed.  Any- 
one was  free  to  resign  voluntarily  and  therewith,  he 
became  a  simple  lay-brother  without  becoming  an 
enemy  of  the  order.  The  acceptance  of  nuns  into 
the  narrower  circle  of  the  order  was  reluctantly 
agreed  to  by  Buddha  himself.  Ananda,  the  favorite 
disciple,  had  championed  them  and,  despite  the  mas- 
ter's grave  doubts,  made  the  beginning.  The  needs 
of  the  layman  were  cared  for  by  the  sermons  of 
wandering  monks  and  the  house  to  house  care  for 
souls  which  they  connected  with  their  begging  ex- 
peditions. As  for  the  rest,  the  worship  of  the  Bud- 
dhist people  consisted  mainly  in  an  adoration  of 
relics  of  Buddha,  in  pilgrimages  to  the  sacred 
cities  of  his  earthly  life,  in  sacrificial  otTerings 
to    the    images    of    saints     (flowers    and   incense 

183 


Religion  and   Historic   Faiths 

especially    being    used)    and    in    donations    to  the 
monasteries. 

In  the  history  of  the  Buddhist  church,  the  reign 
of  the  powerful  King  Asoka  (270-233  B.C.)  plays 
the  same  role  as  that  of  Constantine  in  the  Christian 
Church.  After  a  tempestuous  youth,  in  the  third 
year  of  his  reign,  Asoka  is  said  to  have  been  con- 
verted to  faith  in  Buddha  by  a  monk  to  whom  he 
remained  attached  throughout  all  his  life  as  a  lay- 
brother,  and  whom  he  adored  greatly.  He  gave 
proof  of  this  not  only  by  rich  endowments  and 
buildings  for  church  purposes,  but  also  by  making 
the  beautiful  side  of  Buddhistic  ethics,  the  humane 
mildness  and  benevolence  and  patience,  the  leading 
principle  of  his  rulership.  In  one  of  his  edicts  he 
declares  **  All  men  are  as  my  children ;  as  to  them, 
so  do  I  wish  to  all  men  that  they  may  participate 
in  all  of  the  happiness  here  and  beyond.  There  is 
no  greater  deed  than  the  work  for  the  general 
good."  In  another  edict  he  expresses  himself  con- 
cerning the  principle  of  tolerance  thus :  "  The  King 
honors  all  sects  with  small  gifts  and  proofs  of  his 
respect,  but  of  most  importance  to  him  is  that  they 
grow  in  inner  value.  The  main  thing  connected 
therewith  is  carefulness  of  words,  so  that  one  does 
not  laud  one's  own  sect  to  heaven  and  make  another 
low.  Whoever  does  that,  even  though  his  purpose 
be  praiseworthy,  only  harms  his  own  sect.  There- 
fore, harmony  is  good,  so  that  mutually  all  can 
learn  the  teaching  and  hearken  to  it  gladly.     This 

184 


Buddhism 

is  the  King's  wish,  that  all  sects  be  well  instructed 
and  pious."  In  this  spirit  he  appoints  officers  for 
the  reg^ular  instruction  of  all  classes  of  people,  not 
only  for  men  hut  also,  and  this  is  a  novelty  in  India, 
for  women.  Among  the  moral  duties  thus  taught, 
respect  toward  parents  and  teachers,  goodness  and 
mildness  toward  children,  servants  and  poor,  right- 
eousness, patience  with  and  benevolence  toward  all, 
as  well  as  care  for  animals,  were  the  most  impor- 
tant for  him.  He  himself  set  the  good  example  in 
his  care  for  the  welfare  of  his  people.  He  founded 
hospitals  for  the  sick,  he  had  wells  and  trees  and 
shelters  provided  for  the  wanderers  along  the  roads, 
and  he  made  it  a  duty  of  his  officials  to  treat  all  citi- 
zens humanely,  particularly  those  of  the  lowest 
classes  and  prisoners.  Besides  this  care  for  the  pop- 
ular application  of  the  lay-ethics  of  Buddhism,  he 
devoted  himself  to  the  ordering  of  church  matters. 
For  this  purpose  he  called  the  great  council  of 
Patna,  252  b.c,  the  third,  according  to  Buddhistic 
tradition.  There  the  disputes  concerning  monastic 
regulations  were  settled  and  the  oldest  canon  of  the 
sacred  writings  was  fixed.  Whether  this  latter  was 
the  same  as  that  which  had  ac(iuircd  authority  in 
the  South-Buddhistic  church  under  the  name  Tripi- 
taka  ("  three  baskets  ")  seems  questionable. 

Finally.  Asoka  was  the  first  to  begin  the  spread 
of  Buddhism  in  lands  outside  of  India  by  the  send- 
ing of  missionaries.  The  mission  to  Ceylon,  headed 
by  Asoka's  son  and  daughters,  was  particularly  suc- 

185 


Religion  and   Historic  Faiths 

cessful.  They  were,  welcomed  there  in  friendly 
fashion  and  laid  the  foundation  for  the  most  flour- 
ishing and,  to  this  day,  the  most  purely  preserved 
Buddhistic  church.  Asoka  also  sent  missionaries 
to  Kashmir,  Bactria,  and  lower  India,  and  sought  to 
establish  connections  with  Syria,  Macedonia  and 
Egypt,  but  with  what  success  is  not  known  to  us. 
Several  centuries  later,  Buddhism  found  its  way 
into  Eastern  Asia  where  it  gained  ground  more  and 
more  as  the  centuries  rolled  on,  until  to-day  that  is 
its  main  seat.  But  it  was  a  somewhat  different  kind 
of  Buddhism  from  that  of  the  South  in  Ceylon  and 
lower  India.  At  the  beginning  of  the  second  cen- 
tury of  the  Christian  era  occurred  that  important 
schism  in  the  Buddhist  church  which  divided  the 
adherents  of  the  Mahayana  from  the  Hinayana  (the 
great  and  little  vessel).  The  former  did  not  devi- 
ate much  from  the  older  form  of  the  Buddha  teach- 
ing. Over  the  single  Buddhas  and  Bodhisattvas, 
they  set  an  original  Buddha  as  the  highest  principle, 
an  eternal  self-existing  being  whose  particular 
forms  of  appearance  are  the  single  Buddhas  of  the 
past  and  the  Bodhisattvas  now  existing  in  heaven. 
These  beings,  which  here  and  there  may  have  merged 
with  the  popular  gods  and  the  local  heroes,  became 
the  objects  of  religious  prayer,  to  whom  appeals  for 
help  were  made  in  every  time  of  distress.  No  more 
was  the  practical  ideal  so  much  the  demand  for  sal- 
vation from  sorrow-laden  existence  through  a  pas- 
sive Nirvana  but  rather  the  dignity  of  a  Bodhisattva 

iS6 


Buddhism 

who  had  the  power  to  act  for  others  as  a  savior  and 
redeemer.  The  ethical-social  motive  of  the  Bud- 
dhistic doctrine  of  salvation  here  outweighed  the 
purely  personal  and  at  bottom  somewhat  egoistical 
interest  in  passive  salvation  and  bliss.  In  this  form 
of  the  doctrine,  Nirvana  finally  became  a  positive 
blissful  existence  in  the  world  beyond,  a  heaven  or 
"  pure  land."  With  all  of  this  a  tendency  had  been 
entered  upon  which  came  in  close  contact  with  pop- 
ular Brahmanism  in  India  and  Taoism  in  China, 
a  tendency  which  held  various  possibilties  of  devel- 
opment in  itself — on  the  one  hand  to  theistic  belief  in 
one  God  and  on  the  other  to  naturalistic  polytheism 
with  its  accompanying  magic  and  exorcisms.  This 
last  tendency  became  the  stronger  in  India  from  the 
fifth  century  on.  The  report  of  the  journey  of  the 
Chinese  pilgrim  Juen-Tschunang,  dated  seventh 
century,  shows  that  Indian  Buddhism  had  completely 
degenerated  and  fallen  into  a  mass  of  crude  super- 
stitions and  magic  notions.  In  such  condition  it 
could  not  offer  any  powerful  opposition  to  the 
mighty  reaction  of  Brahmanism.  In  the  eleventh 
century  it  succumbed  entirely  to  Islam  which  made 
its  victorious  entry  into  India.  In  Ceylon  alone. 
Buddhism  retained  its  original  character  and  main- 
tained itself  through  all  the  changes  of  political  cir- 
cumstances without  a  break  to  this  day. 

Buddhism  had  a  peculiar  development  in  Thibet. 
There  it  took  on  the  nature  of  a  hierarchical  system 
whose  head  was  the  high  priest  Dalai-Lama,  a  pope- 

187 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

king.  The  possessor  of  this  dignity  was  considered 
the  incarnation  of  the  Bodhisattva,  Avalokitesvara, 
merged  with  the  ancient  protecting  spirit  of  the 
country. 

"With  its  shaved  priests,  bells,  rosaries,  images,  holy 
water  and  imposing  robes,  with  its  processions,  formulae  of 
confession,  mystic  rites,  and  incense  for  the  service  of  God, 
which  the  layman  only  witnesses  as  a  spectator,  with  its 
abbots,  monks  and  nuns  of  various  grades,  with  its  worship 
of  the  twofold  virgin  and  of  the  saints  and  angels,  its  fasts, 
confessions  and  purgatorial  fires,  its  powerful  monasteries 
and  magnificent  cathedrals,  its  powerful  hierarchy,  cardinals 
and  pope — Lamaism  has  externally,  at  least,  a  strong  re- 
semblance to  Romanism,  despite  their  essential  difference 
of  teaching  and  manner  of  thought."     (Rhys  Davids.) 

The  contrast  to  this  quasi-Roman  Catholic  form 
of  Buddhism  is  the  Protestant  form  which  it  took 
in  the  Schinschu  sect  of  the  Japanese  Buddhists  after 
the  thirteenth  century.  This  sect  teaches  that 
neither  one's  own  works  nor  theological  knowledge, 
but  belief  in  Amida  Suddha  alone,  makes  blessed. 
(Amida  is  the  Japanese  name  for  the  Buddha  of 
faith,  the  celestial  spirit  of  salvation  which  bears 
about  the  same  relation  to  the  historical  Gautama, 
the  founder  of  the  congregation,  that  the  Christ  of 
faith  bears  to  the  historical  Jesus.)  To  him  alone 
is  prayer  to  be  made,  not  for  earthly  gifts,  but  merely 
as  an  expression  of  gratitude  for  his  saving  grace. 
The  faithful  will  not  have  to  wait  until  after 
death  to  be  led  by  Amida  into  his  paradise,  but  ex- 
perience his  blessing  presence  even  now,  directly  in 

i88 


Buddhism 

the  heart.  The  priest  is  no  more  holy  than  the 
layman,  but  he  is  only  the  teacher  of  the  truth  which 
makes  blessed ;  the  priest  may  marry,  for  the  family 
is  the  best  place  in  which  to  practice  pious  living. 

In  conclusion  I  will  quote  two  confessions  of 
earnest  Buddhistic  piety;  the  first  is  that  of  an 
Indian  Buddhist  of  the  eleventh  century  who  was 
forced  to  fly  from  his  home  because  of  his  faith; 
and  the  second  is  that  of  an  adherent  of  the  above- 
mentioned  Japanese  sect: 

"Whether  I  dwell  in  heaven  or  in  hell,  in  the  city  of 
spirits  or  of  men,  may  my  thoughts  be  firmly  set  upon  thee, 
for  there  is  no  other  happiness  for  me.  To  me  thou  art 
father,  mother,  brother,  sister;  thou  art  my  true  friend  in 
dangers,  O  my  beloved;  thou  art  my  master,  my  teacher  who 
doth  impart  unto  me  wisdom  sweet  as  nectar.  Thou  art  my 
wealth,  my  joy,  my  pleasure,  my  greatness,  my  fame,  my 
wisdom  and  my  life,  thou  art  my  all,  O,  omniscient  Buddha." 

On  the  shoreless  sea  of  a  world  of  pain 
Where  follow  birth  and  death  without  an  end, 
There  drove  we  on,  the  sport  of  the  wave, 
Until  Amida,  full  of  mercy  once  again, 
Did  in  his  grace  the  boat  of  rescue  send, 
Which  to  the  blessed  port  now  bears  us  safe. 


189 


XI 


THE   GREEK    RELIGION 


We  will  pass  from  the  Indians  to  the  Greeks.  In 
the  religious  history  of  these  two  peoples,  there  ex- 
ists a  closer  resemblance  than  commonly  is  believed. 
In  everyday  thinking,  the  opinion  has  taken  firm  root 
that  two  things  could  not  possibly  be  in  greater  oppo- 
sition :  on  the  one  hand,  the  gay  Greek  full  of  power 
for  life,  and  on  the  other,  the  world-weary  Indian, 
ascetic  and  contemplative.  But  we  have  seen  that 
originally,  in  the  period  of  which  the  songs  of  the 
Rig  Veda  give  us  knowledge,  the  Indians,  too,  were 
a  nation  rejoicing  in  deed  and  joyous  in  living,  as 
well  as  the  Greeks  of  the  time  of  Homer;  besides, 
we  will  discover  that  the  world-view  and  mood  of 
the  Greek  people  ended  in  a  deep  world-woe,  an 
elegiac  resignation,  a  flight  from  the  world  of  the 
senses  to  the  world  of  ideas.  This  is  what  makes 
the  parallel  between  these  two  peoples  of  such  in- 
terest :  their  common  revulsion  from  the  joy  of  life 
to  resignation  and  life-denial. 

Yet  there  is  one  thing  which  differentiates  the  re- 
ligious history  of  the  Greeks  from  that  of  the  In- 
dians; one  thing  which  the  Indians  lacked  utterly, 

190 


The  Greek  Religion 

the  Greeks  possessed,  namely,  a  sense  of  order  and 
proportion,  of  clearness  and  beauty.  This  artistic 
tendency  was  the  charisma  of  the  Greeks,  ever  pres- 
ent in  their  religion  as  in  their  philosophy,  preserv- 
ing them  from  the  excesses  of  Indian  fantasticism 
and  dreaming.  It  is  this  which  made  it  possible 
for  them  to  exercise  a  deep  influence  upon  Oriental 
behef  and  thought  such  as  had  never  been  possible 
to  Indian  wisdom. 

Hegel  aptly  characterized  the  Greek  religion  as 
the  "  religion  of  beauty."  The  gods  of  Homer, — 
Zeus,  Apollo,  Athene,  Aphrodite  and  the  rest, — are 
essentially  the  aesthetic  ideals  of  beautiful  mankind. 
Therein  lies  their  advantage  and  questionable  weak- 
ness. The  advantage  is  this :  they  are  humanized 
to  a  far  greater  extent  than  the  gods  of  the  In- 
dians, the  Germans,  or  the  gods  of  any  other  Indo- 
Germanic  people  had  been.  To  the  credit  of  the 
Homeric  poetry  (which  naturally  was  not  the 
work  of  any  single  poet,  but  of  generations  of 
singers,  living  from  the  eighth  to  the  tenth  cen- 
tury, B.C.)  be  it  said  that  through  it,  the  various 
local  and  tribal  gods  and  the  spirits  of  ancestors  and 
of  nature,  which  were  at  hand,  were  uprooted  from 
their  nature-soil  and  humanized  to  a  greater  extent 
than  anywhere  else.  Greek  mythology  itself  pre- 
serves the  record  of  this  change  in  the  legend  of  the 
struggle  between  the  Olympians  and  the  Titans, 
which  ended  in  the  complete  victory  of  the  Olym- 
pians.    The  Titans  were  conquered  once  for  all  and 

191 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

hurled  into  the  Orcus  below;  in  other  words,  the 
Homeric  gods  no  longer  must  struggle  with  the 
powers  of  nature,  they  are  no  longer  enmeshed  in 
the  processes  of  nature  but  they  have  become  inde- 
pendent persons,  entirely  human  in  their  emotions, 
thoughts  and  actions,  so  much  so,  that  we  are  at  a 
loss  to  recognize  their  former  nature-meaning,  and 
at  best,  make  suppositions  concerning  them.  They 
have  become  human  beings,  beautiful  human  beings ; 
ideals  of  human  beauty,  grace  and  dignity,  in  the 
sense  of  that  harmonious  balance  of  sensuality  and 
reason,  which  was  ever  present  to  the  Greek  in  his 
ideal  of  the  beautiful-good  (kalokagathon).  But 
nowhere  is  it  the  purely  moral  ideal  of  the  good  as 
the  thing  of  absolute  value,  for  which  under  some 
circumstances,  even  that  which  is  pleasant  to  the 
senses  must  be  sacrificed.  These  humanized  gods 
rise  far  above  mortals  in  power,  knowledge  and 
happiness,  but  they  are  in  no  way  unlimited  and, 
least  of  all,  morally  perfect.  Though  it  is  often 
said  of  them,  that  they  can  do  all  things  and  know 
all  things,  many  different  instances  show  that  that 
is  not  so :  their  power  is  limited  by  fate,  that  moira, 
whose  decree  even  Zeus  must  ask,  and — even 
though  it  be  contrary  to  his  will,  as  in  the  case  of 
the  death  of  his  son  Sarpedon — must  obey  abso- 
lutely. More  imperfect  than  their  power  is  the 
moral  goodness  of  these  gods ;  you  know  what  the 
morals  of  these  Olympians  was,  their  constant  quar- 
rels,   their    intriguing,    their    unclean    love-affairs, 

192         . 


The  Greek  Religion 

beings  not  even  horrified  by  adultery.  Their  atti- 
tude toward  men  is  not  praiseworthy;  they  ask  not 
after  merit  or  worth,  but  rest  their  decisions  on 
personal  moods  and  selfish  motives — sympathies 
and  antipathies,  jealousy,  revenge  and  the  like. 
Hence  it  must  be  said:  these  gods  are  esthetically 
refined  beings  (compare  for  example  an  Aphrodite 
with  its  Asiatic  prototype,  Astarte  or  Cybele,  what 
a  difference  between  the  rude  nature-power  here 
and  the  human  ideal  of  grace  and  charm  there) ; 
nevertheless,  the  truth  remains  that  even  this  charm- 
ing Aphrodite  is  not  a  moral  ideal.  The  gods  of 
Homer  are  ideals  of  humanity,  beautiful  but  not 
good ;  they  are  elevated  above  the  crude  elemental 
nature,  but  they  feel  and  act  after  the  manner  of 
primitive  peoples  and  of  children,  who  know  no 
higher  controlling  law  of  goodness  than  their  own 
arbitrary  wishes  and  their  moods. 

It  is  a  strange  contrast  to  find  that  a  Zeus,  in  his 
official  activities,  so  to  speak,  is  the  representative 
of  right  and  righteousness,  the  guardian  of  the 
order  of  the  universe,  the  protector  of  the  helpless 
(particularly  in  a  political  sense),  the  stranger  and 
the  weak ;  as  "  King  of  Gods  and  Men,"  he  is  the 
representative  and  stronghold  of  justice  in  the 
world.  So  far  then,  the  god-idea,  especially  in  the 
forms  of  Zeus,  Apollo  and  Athene,  had  been  made 
moral.  But  this  moralization  evidently  stopped 
half  way,  since,  according  to  the  legends  of  myth- 
ology, these  gods  were  in  their  private  lives  any- 

193 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

thing  but  moral  examples  for  men.  Therein  lies 
the  reason  for  Plato's  well-known  exclusion  of 
Homer  as  literature  for  the  schools;  and  if  we 
refuse  to  allow  ourselves  to  be  blinded  by  aesthetic 
charm  and  put  ourselves  without  prejudice  in  the 
place  of  a  Greek  teacher  of  young  and  old,  we  will 
find  Plato's  judgment  easy  to  understand,  however 
crass  a  contradiction  to  the  usual  Greek  reverence 
of  Homer  it  may  be. 

Without  doubt,  the  reason  why  the  Greek  concep- 
tion of  God  never  rose  above  this  dual  nature  lay 
in  the  fact  that  those  who  handled  it  and  handed  it 
down  were  not  the  moral  teachers  of  people,  not  the 
prophets  and  the  priests,  but  poets  and  artists  for 
whom  the  aesthetic  charm  was  of  such  moment  that 
they  questioned  no  farther  as  to  what  was  morally 
salutary.  The  poets  of  the  Homeric  epics  were 
wandering  singers  who  entertained  the  masters  of 
the  houses  by  performing  their  songs  at  the  courts 
of  princes  and  the  knightly  castles;  we  may  think 
readily  that  they  narrated  their  stories  of  the  gods 
and  heroes  in  the  fashion  which  would  be  most 
acceptable  in  those  circles  where  a  gay  life  that 
oscillated  between  feasting,  adventure  and  feuds 
was  led,  but  which  knew  nothing  of  serious  moral 
purposes  and  ideals.  Because  Greece  never  achieved 
a  national  monarchy,  which  could  care  for  the  per- 
manent welfare  of  the  people,  nor  a  priesthood, 
which  undertook  the  education  of  the  people,  there- 
fore, neither  the  moralization  nor  the  unification  of 

194 


The  Greek  Religion 

the  god-world  could  be  carried  out  completely,  as 
was  the  case  in  the  religion  of  Zarathustra  or  even 
of  Israel ;  the  gods  remained  the  ideals  of  the  friv- 
olous nobles,  and  Zeus  remained  the  first  among  his 
peers,  the  presiding  officer  of  the  Olympian  aris- 
tocracy. 

In  the  forms  of  Athene  and  Apollo  whom  Homer 
ranks  nearest  to  Zeus,  the  ideal  side  of  the  Greek 
conception  of  the  gods,  finds  comparatively  its 
purest  expression.  The  nature-background  is  almost 
entirely  gone  in  the  case  of  Athene,  the  motherless 
daughter  of  Zeus ;  she  is  the  goddess  of  wisdom, 
prudence,  diplomacy,  industry,  technical  and  artistic 
skill,  and  the  patroness  of  an  industrious  citizen- 
ship as  well  as  of  arts  and  sciences.  And  Apolfo, 
the  son  of  Zeus,  is  the  revealerof  his  will;  in  the 
worship  of  Apollo  at  Delphi,  Greek  religion  at- 
tained its  highest,  and  from  Delphi  there  emanated 
an  influence  which  acted  beneficially  upon  the  cul- 
ture of  the  whole  people.  From  of  old,  there  had 
been  an  oracle  of  the  earth-spirit  Python  at  Delphi ; 
of  him  it  was  believed  that  he  dwelt  as  a  snake  in 
the  depths  of  a  fissure  of  the  earth.  The  Doric 
priests  of  Apollo  took  possession  of  this  site  of  the 
oracle,  and  legend  represents  this  as  a  \'ictory  of 
Apollo  over  Python.  Thereby  a  higher,  more 
moralized  train  entered  into  the  use  of  this  oracle. 
The  enthusiastic  form  still  remained :  the  virgin 
priestess  Pythia  sat  upon  a  tripod,  placed  over  the 
fissure  in  the  eardi,   from  which  sense-destroying 

195 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

vapors  rose  and  hypnotized  her.  In  this  condition, 
whatever  she  uttered,  "  with  raging  mouth,"  was 
held  to  be  the  word  of  the  god,  of  whom  she  seemed 
to  be  possessed.  While  the  enthusiasm  of  the 
priestess  was  the  basis  of  the  oracle,  it  was  not 
all,  for  behind  Pythia  stood  the  intelligent  priest- 
hood of  Delphi,  who,  in  the  course  of  time,  had  be- 
come rich  in  experiences,  in  knowledge  of  the  world 
and  of  men,  and  had  established  many  and  intricate 
relations.  They  understood  how  to  edit  sensibly 
and  to  retouch  the  oracles  spoken  by  the  priestess 
in  her  ecstasy,  so  that  her  words  became  of  use. 
This  is  a  noteworthy  example  of  an  experience, 
often  found  active  in  the  history  of  religion,  where 
the  combination  of  an  enthusiastic  prophecy  and 
priestly  wisdom  resulted  in  the  most  effective  re- 
ligious influence  upon  the  people. 

It  has  been  maintained  that  the  Delphic  oracle 
governed  and  directed  the  life  of  the  entire  Greek 
people  from  the  ninth  to  the  sixth  century.  Despite 
the  authority  of  a  Curtius,  the  statement  may  not  be 
entirely  correct;  nevertheless,  this  much  is  certain, 
that  nothing  great  transpired  in  Greece  in  those  cen- 
turies, without  the  sanction  of  the  Delphic  oracle : 
this  was  true  of  the  framing  of  laws,  the  perfection 
of  political  alliances,  the  sending  of  colonies  as  well 
as  of  the  founding  of  states.  Certainly,  this  sanction 
must  have  been  held  in  high  regard  or  it  would  not 
have  been  sought  constantly.  Most  important  was 
the  influence  which  the  Delphic  worship  of  Apollo 

196 


The  Greek  Religion 

exercised  upon  the  national  religion  and  morals.  A 
higher  conception  of  religious  atonement  and  purity 
emanated  from  this  pure  god,  and  that  became  of 
greatest  cultural  importance.  The  blood-atone- 
ment, which  had  previously  been  practiced  as  blood- 
revenge,  was  now  subject  to  state-regulation.  It 
was  a  remarkable  step  forward  that  the  blood  which 
had  been  spilled  did  not  cry  out  for  revenge,  but  that 
the  purpose  and  attitude  of  the  doer  was  asked — 
whether  he  had  shed  the  blood  intentionally  or  by 
chance,  whether  he  was  right  or  wrong  in  so  doing. 
It  was  of  utmost  importance  to  the  whole  adminis- 
tration of  justice  in  Greece  that  not  merely  the  deed 
as  such,  but  the  intention  of  the  doer,  was  the 
standard  of  measure.  From  that  stage,  it  was  but 
a  short  step  to  the  idea  that  the  thing  of  importance 
in  the  judgment  of  the  value  of  men,  was  not  the 
external  action,  but  the  purity  of  the  attitude ;  that 
this  thought,  in  principle  at  least,  had  been  grasped 
by  the  better  ones  among  the  representatives  of  the 
religion  of  Apollo,  can  scarcely  be  doubted.  The 
warning  which  greeted  the  pilgrims  to  the  temple 
at  Delphi  read :  "  For  the  good,  one  drop  suffices, 
but  for  the  bad,  all  the  waves  of  the  sea  cannot 
wash  their  sins  away."  The  other  two  inscrip- 
tions there  are  characteristic  of  Greek  piety  and 
morality:  "Know  thyself."  and  "Nothing  beyond 
measure."  Thoughtful  knowledge  of  self  and 
quiet  temperance,  self-control,  that  is  the  ideal;  the 
suppression  of  the  senses  was  not  demanded,  but  a 

197 


Religion  and   Historic  Faiths 

training  of  self  by  the  control  of  all  unbounded 
passions;  that  is  the  fundamental  of  Greek  ethics, 
which  Aristotle  formulated  in  his  well-known  defi- 
nition of  virtue  as  the  mean  between  two  extremes. 
It  must  be  conceded,  that  even  if  the  highest  plane 
had  not  been  reached  therein,  at  least  it  marked  a 
stage  in  the  moral  culture  of  mankind,  worthy  of 
great  respect. 

From  the  sixth  century  on,  the  priests  of  Apollo 
at  Delphi  steadily  lost  in  influence;  partly,  it  was 
their  own  fault,  but  mainly,  it  was  because  of  their 
anti-national  attitude  in  the  Persian  wars,  which  the 
Greek  people  could  never  forget.  The  new  condi- 
tions generally  had  been  at  work ;  the  sixth  century 
in  Greece  was  a  period  of  deep-seated  changes  and 
innovations.  The  upheaval  in  state  afifairs  occa- 
sioned by  the  rise  of  the  democracy  in  the  separate 
city-states  was  partly  the  consequence  and  partly 
the  cause  of  a  widespread  striving  for  the  eman- 
cipation of  individual  thought  and  action  from 
traditional  faith  and  paternal  custom;  it  was  the 
powerful  movement  of  the  Greek  spirit  growing 
more  and  more  conscious  of  his  characteristic  nature, 
his  impulse  for  freedom,  clarity,  reasonableness, 
without  which  there  never  had  been  a  Periclean 
age — even  though  the  shadows  inevitably  accom- 
panied the  light. 

The  way  in  which  this  new  time-spirit  expressed 
itself  in  the  religion  of  the  Greeks  is  remarkable. 
Almost  contemporaneously  we  see  two  new   ten- 

198 


The  Greek  Religion 

dciicies  emerge;  the  opposition  to  the  Homeric 
reh'gion  was  their  one  common  ground,  in  every- 
thing else  they  were  impelled  by  motives  that  dif- 
fered and  satisfied  the  needs  of  different  classes  of 
the  people.  On  the  one  hand,  a  renaissance  of  the 
old,  popular  peasant-worship,  which  might  be  re- 
garded as  the  democratic  reaction  against  the 
aristocratic  state-worship,  except, — one  point  that 
must  not  be  forgotten, — that  this  reaction  bore 
within  it  the  most  fruitful  seed  of  religious  progress 
in  the  sense  of  individual  deepening  and  mystical 
contemplation.  On  the  other  hand,  the  beginning 
of  philosophical  criticism  of  the  mythical  religion, 
a  rationalism  which  originated  with  the  Ionian 
nature-philosophers,  lived  on  in  the  work  of  the 
elegiac  and  tragic  poets  and  reached  its  climax  in 
the  skepticism  of  the  Sophists.  Therewith  came  the 
turn  into  the  new  movement  in  the  philosophy  of 
religion  under  Socrates  and  Plato  which  might  be 
designated  as  the  common  product  and  higher  union 
of  the  religion  of  tlie  mysteries  and  the  thinking  <^f 
the  philosophers.  In  brief  outlines,  I  will  attempt 
to  describe  these  three  movements. 

First,  then,  the  renaissance  of  the  old  peasant- 
religion  of  agriculture  and  wine-growing,  of  De- 
meter  and  Dionysius.  Though  the  Olympian  world 
of  the  gods  of  Homer  had  crowded  them  into  the 
background  so  far  as  official  worship  was  con- 
cerned, yet  the  nature-g(xls  had  never  1)ccn  sup- 
pressed entirely.    The  aristocratic  gods  of  Olympus, 

199 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

who  cared  only  for  the  larger  affairs  of  all,  never 
had  satisfied  the  needs  of  the  people  and  not  even 
the  Homeric  shiitting-off  of  souls  in  Hades  had  been 
strong  enough  to  break  the  allegiance  of  the  fam- 
ilies to  the  combination  of  soul-worship  with  the 
realms  beyond.  But  now,  in  the  age  when  democ- 
racy was  growing  more  powerful,  the  people  turned 
again  with  renewed  zeal  to  those  old  but  unforgot- 
ten  legends  and  customs  which  revolved  about  the 
worship  of  the  gods  of  the  fruitful  earth  and  the 
mysterious  nether  world. 

From  ancient  times  there  had  been  a  worship  of 
Demeter  and  her  daughter  Kore  (Persephone)  at 
Eleusis.  Legend  said  that  the  goddess  herself, 
while  seeking  her  daughter,  whom  Pluto,  the  god 
of  death,  had  abducted,  met  with  friendly  hospitality 
there  and  established  the  services ;  their  original  con- 
tent was  nothing  more  than  the  annual  experience 
of  the  death  of  vegetation  (the  abduction  of  Kore) 
and  her  resurrection  in  the  Spring  (the  return  of 
Kore  to  her  mother).  This  simple  nature-notion, 
which  we  met  in  the  Isis-Osiris  myths,  was  at  the 
root  of  the  Eleusinian  worship  of  Demeter,  but  with 
it  there  was  united  a  higher  religious  idea,  a  hope 
of  a  happy  beyond  for  the  souls  of  the  pious.  It 
may  be  that  the  worship  of  Dionysius  was  at  work 
here  also;  from  the  time  of  the  incorporation  of 
Eleusis  into  the  Athenian  state  and  the  conversion 
of  the  Demeter  cult  into  a  state  affair,  the  cult  of 
Dionysius,  native  to  Athens,  was  combined  with  it; 

200 


The  Greek  Religion 

besides,  they  were  both  closely  related  through  their 
passionate  motives  and  dramatic  effects,  so  that  it 
is  easily  conceivable  that  the  enthusiastic-mystical 
feature  of  the  Demeter  cult,  upon  which  the  great 
attractive   power    of    the    *  Eleusinian    mysteries " 
rested,  dates  from  that  period.     What  was  its  act- 
ual magic?     It  has  been  thought  that  the  priests 
imparted  esoteric  teachings.     That  was  an  error; 
altogether,  here  was  no  matter  of  doctrine  nor  arti- 
cles of   faith.     The  heart  of  the  celebration   was 
"  the  actions,"  dramatic  rehearsals  of  the  fate  of 
the  two  goddesses,  the  mourning  of  the  mother  for 
her  lost  daughter,  the  quest,  and  finally  the  joy  of 
the  reunited.    When  we  recall  that  this  was  a  cele- 
bration of  gods,  \Vho  were  not  leading  a  life  of  bliss 
on  Olympus,  heedless   of   the   sufferings   of  men, 
but   gods   who   suffered   the    sorrows   of   mortals, 
tasted  of  death,  and  then  again  overcame  it,  then 
we  can  well  understand  that  for  the  spirit  in  search 
of  consolation,  the  hope  of  a  life  of  bliss  beyond 
could  easily  attach  itself  to  this  celebration.     For, 
be  it  well  understood,  it  was  not  a  matter  of  the 
mere   continuation   of   the    soul    after    death;    the 
Greeks  had  always  believed  in  that,  but  the  condi- 
tion of  the  souls  in  Hades  was  such  a  miserable 
shadow-existence,   that   an   Achilles   prefers   rather 
to  be  a  day-laborer  on  earth  than  a  prince  in  Hades ; 
naturally,  such  a  woeful  future  state  could  not  be 
looked  forward  to  with  hope,  but  with  fear.     As 
against  the  ordinary  lot  of  souls  the  initiated  of 

201 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

Eleusis  hoped  for  a  happy  Hfe  beyond,  similar  to 
that  of  the  gods ;  and  with  what  happiness  this  hope 
filled  them  the  inspired  words  of  their  noblest  men, 
like  Pindar  and  Sophocles,  give  testimony.  With 
certainty,  no  man  can  say  upon  what  this  hope  was 
actually  based,  but  we  may  suppose  that  the  pre- 
paratory fasts  and  processions,  then  the  growing 
dramatic  tension,  and  finally,  at  the  climax  of  the 
celebration,  the  seeing  and  the  hearing  of  mysteri- 
ous formulae  and  symbols  produced  such  an  exalta- 
tion of  the  psychical  life  of  the  celebrants  that  they 
became  one  with  the  deity  and  felt  themselves  to  be 
partakers  of  its  invincible  life, — hence,  they  would 
share  its  future  fate,  and  might  thus  hope  to  escape 
the  dreaded  Hades. 

Originally,  Dionysius  was  a  Thracian  deity  and 
was  worshipped  on  the  hills  of  Thrace  with  crude, 
orgiastic  rites;  transplanted  to  Athens,  he  became 
the  god  of  the  vintage,  and  the  rural  feast-days  dur- 
ing the  vintage  in  the  autumn  and  the  wine-testing 
in  the  spring,  were  spiced  with  many  a  rude  joke 
by  the  peasants.  Here  again,  Greek  genius  dis- 
played its  power  to  take  over  traditional,  foreign 
raw  material  and  ennoble,  spiritualize,  and  trans- 
figure it.  It  was  the  elemental  liveliness  of  these 
feasts  of  the  wine-god — the  alternating  songs,  the 
dances  and  the  pageants  connected  with  it, — which 
produced  the  most  glorious  flower  of  Greek  art, 
the  tragic  and  the  comic  drama.  That  the  combi- 
nation of  the  worship  of  Dionysius  with  the  worship 

202 


The  Greek   Religion 

of  Demeter  at  Eleusis  gave  this  even  a  higher  im- 
pulse, has  been  mentioned.  The  most  singular 
manifestation  of  the  Dionysiac  enthusiasm  was 
that  afforded  by  the  appearance  of  ecstatic  seers, 
who  acted  as  fortune-tellers,  physicians  and  priests 
of  atonement  to  the  people  seeking  help  and  advice. 
Around  them  there  gathered  small  circles  of  be- 
lievers, the  Dionysiac  thiasoi  or  conventicles,  by 
whom  ancient  oracles  were  preserved  and  their 
number  increased  by  new  ones ;  among  them,  too, 
ancient  traditions,  such  as  the  theogony  of  Hesiod, 
were  remodeled  and  imitated,  in  short,  theological 
doctrines  thought  out,  and  these  were  traced  back  to 
the  revelation  of  some  ancient  seer,  like  Orpheus. 
Thus  the  Orphic  theology  and  literature,  which 
probably  originated  in  the  sixth  century,  came  into 
being.  Though  tliere  are  but  slight  fragments 
thereof  preserved,  the  main  fundamental  thoughts 
may  still  be  recognized.  The  Dionysius-Zagreus 
myth  of  the  god,  killed  and  resurrected,  which  is 
connected  with  the  Orphic  doctrine  concerning 
souls,  forms  the  central  point.  The  Orphics 
taught  that  human  beings  were  composed  of  a  mix- 
ture of  divine  (Dionysiac)  and  anti-divine  (Titanic) 
elements.  Man's  soul  is  of  divine  origin  and 
through  his  own  guilt,  did  he  sink  to  the  life  on 
earth ;  the  body  is  its  jail,  its  grave.  Even  death 
does  not  lead  to  its  release,  but  to  a  wandering  of 
the  soul  in  a  circle  of  rebirths.  The  one  means  of 
escape  from  this  unfortunate  circle  is  the  employ- 

203 


Religion  and   Historic   Faiths 

ment  of  the  Dionysiac  rites  of  purification,  estab- 
lished by  Orpheus.  Among  these  were  certain 
ascetic  abstinences,  particularly  from  the  eating  of 
meat.  In  the  realm  beyond,  a  blessed,  god-like  lot 
awaits  those  thus  consecrated,  while  the  rest  will 
suffer  castigation  in  the  nether  world  or  enter  into 
new  embodiments.  This  theme  of  the  bliss  and 
misery  beyond  was  a  favorite  elaboration  of  the 
Orphic  sacramental  priests  and  the  principal  attrac- 
tion of  their  sermons  for  the  people;  while,  among 
the  enlightened,  they  were  regarded  as  swindlers 
and  charlatans. 

Almost  contemporaneously  with  the  religious 
movement  of  the  sixth  century  just  described,  the 
enlightenment  had  begun.  Xenophanes,  who  had 
abandoned  his  Ionian  home  after  the  Persian  inva- 
sion and  settled  in  Elea  (Lower  Italy),  subjected  the 
traditional  myths  to  sharp  criticism.  Homer  and 
Hesiod  had  ascribed  to  the  gods  everything  which 
among  men  was  held  to  be  wicked  and  reprehensible : 
robbery,  adultery  and  lying;  equally  foolish  it  was  to 
conceive  of  the  gods  in  human  form ;  with  equal 
justice,  animals  might  represent  them  in  animal- 
shapes,  if  they  had  hands.  Moreover,  God  could 
only  be  the  one  spirit,  with  whom  man  might  not 
be  compared  and  who  moved  the  world  by  his  think- 
ing. According  to  Parmenides,  God  is  the  all-one, 
unchangeable  Being,  while  the  world  of  the  mani- 
fold and  the  becoming  is  an  empty  semblance,  the 
dream  of  Maya  as  the  Brahmans  taught.     Accord- 

204 


The  Greek  Religion 

ing  to  HeracHtus  of  Ephesus,  tliere  was  no  such 
thing  as  a  permanent  Being  altogether  but  only  the 
circle  of  a  purposeless  becoming  and  dissolving,  in 
whose  endless  flow  all  the  goods  and  values  of  life 
are  submerged ;  the  course  of  the  world  is  a  child's 
play  and  men  are  fools  who  hold  that  of  importance 
which  is  liable  to  destruction.  Among  the  Ionian 
Greeks  of  Asia  Minor,  the  joy  of  life  had  given  way 
to  this  pessimistic  mood  after  their  homes  had 
fallen  prey  to  the  Persian  conquerors.  Even  in 
Greece  proper,  where  the  onslaught  of  the  Persian 
armies  had  been  successfully  resisted,  the  voices  of 
doubt  as  to  the  value  of  life  and  of  reason  and  right- 
eousness in  the  universal  order,  grew  louder  and 
louder  in  the  course  of  the  fifth  century. 

In  the  dramas  of  Sophocles,  we  hear  ever  the 
anxious  questioning  of  the  unexplainable  rulings  of 
the  gods  and  the  complaints  of  the  hard  lot  of 
mortals  undeserved ;  and,  even  where  the  poet  urges 
to  pious  humility,  the  tone  of  bitter  pessimism  be- 
trays its  presence :  "  Best  it  is  never  to  have  been 
born,  but  second  best  it  is  to  return  speedily  thither, 
whence  thou  comest."  With  Euripides,  this  doubt 
of  the  righteousness  of  the  divine  ordering  of  things 
rises  to  a  doubt  of  the  existence  of  the  gods  alto- 
gether, and  yet  this  faithlessness  brings  him  no 
greater  peace  than  did  his  faith ;  in  this  restless 
swinging  to  and  fro,  this  vain  seeking  for  positive 
conviction,  he  is  the  genuine  son  of  the  period  of 
enlightenment.     The  main   representatives  of  this 

205 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

period  were  the  Sophists,  the  masters  in  oratory, 
among  whom  the  practice  of  dialectic  play  with 
concepts  soon  led  to  that  excess,  which  skeptically 
disintegrated  everything  traditional.  Protagoras 
thought  it  could  not  be  known  whether  there  were 
gods  or  no ;  and  Kritias  straightway  explained  the 
belief  in  the  gods  as  the  invention  of  clever  states- 
men, and  law  as  only  another  name  for  the  power 
of  the  stronger. 

This  presumption  of  a  superficial  sham-knowl- 
edge found  its  master  in  Socrates,  who  held  that 
the  beginning  of  wisdom  lies  in  the  recognition  of 
our  lack  of  it.  He  held  it  to  be  his  god-given  call- 
ing to  educate  men  to  self-knowledge,  to  an  insight 
into  that  which  is  salutary  for  morals  and  thus  to 
virtue.  He  believed  in  the  providence  of  a  highest, 
all-decreeing  reason,  who  employed  gods  of  the 
popular  faith  as  his  instruments,  and  who  was  as 
much  greater  than  our  reason  as  the  world  was  than 
our  body.  He  believed,  also,  in  a  divine  revelation 
within  him,  which  he  was  wont  to  call  the  voice  of 
his  "  Da?monian,"  almost  the  same  as  what  we  are 
accustomed  to  call  the  monitory  voice  of  conscience 
and  the  warning  premonition.  It  is  this  D?emo- 
nion  which  he  relied  upon  even  in  opposition  to  the 
authority  of  the  state;  he  says  to  his  judges  that 
he  must  obey  the  god,  who  had  given  him  the  com- 
mission to  educate  men  to  virtue,  more  than  men. 
Here,  for  the  first  time,  personality  stands  upon  the 
good  right  of  individual  conviction  as  against  the 

206 


The  Greek  Religion 

traditions  of  state  and  society.  This  struggle,  which 
marks  a  new  epoch  in  the  history  of  rehgion,  re- 
sulted in  the  death  of  Socrates.  We  may  call  him 
the  first  blood-witness  of  philosophy  and  at  the 
same  time  a  prophetic  forerunner  of  Christianity. 

His  work,  however,  was  active  still  in  Plato, 
who  broadened  the  self-knowledge  of  Socrates  to 
a  knowledge  of  the  supersensual  world  of  "  ideas," 
the  eternal  prototypes  of  the  true,  the  beautiful,  and 
the  good,  which  are  the  basis  and  the  goal  of  all 
temporal  phenomena,  synthesized  into  a  unity  in  the 
highest  idea  of  the  good,  which  is  one  with  God, 
the  creator,  father  and  archetype  of  the  visible  world, 
his  inborn  son.  In  that  higher  world,  the  soul  of 
man  has  its  origin;  the  Orphic  theologians  had 
taught  that  the  soul  was  divine  in  nature  and 
origin,  and  Plato  so  embodied  this  doctrine  in  his 
philosophy  that  he  identified  the  soul  w^ith  the  idea 
of  life  and  thus  caused  it  to  participate  in  the  eter- 
nity and  indestructibility  of  ideas  in  general.  Ac- 
cording to  Plato,  the  descent  of  the  soul  into  the 
physical  world  is  the  consequence  of  an  intellectual 
fall  through  sin,  a  paralysis  of  the  wings  of  the 
soul,  striving  to  attain  the  heights  of  the  essential 
truth,  beauty  and  goodness. 

But  of  that,  which  it  has  seen  once,  the  soul, 
even  after  it  has  been  dragged  down  by  its  weight 
of  earth,  retains  certain  memories;  ordinarily  dark 
and  unconscious,  these  can  be  elevated  into  con- 
sciousness by  the  perception  of  the  earthly  images 

207 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

of  those  heavenly  forms;  then  and  there,  longing 
for  its  higher  home  awakens  in  the  soul  and  with  it, 
the  love  of  that  which  is  from  above,  the  ideals  of 
the  true,  the  beautiful  and  the  good.  That  is  the 
"  Eros,"  the  "  mediator  between  god  and  man,  the 
divine  demon  "  or  savior-spirit,  which  lifts  us  out 
of  the  close  and  narrow  life  into  the  realm  of  the 
ideal.  For,  herein  Plato  is  entirely  in  accord  with 
the  Orphics,  man  has  need  of  a  salvation.  Though 
the  visible  world  be  an  image  of  the  world  of  ideas, 
yet  the  image  is  distorted,  disfigured  and  clouded 
by  time  and  space ;  though  there  is  much  good  in  the 
world,  yet  there  is  much  more  of  evil  here  below. 
"  Hence  one  must  attempt  to  fly  thither  from  here 
as  soon  as  possible.  The  flight  consists  in  the 
greatest  possible  achievement  of  likeness  to  God,  and 
that  occurs  in  becoming  pious  and  righteous  with 
insight."  Only  the  knowledge  of  the  righteousness 
of  God  and  the  struggle  to  achieve  likeness  to  Him 
is  virtue,  while  it  is  merely  sham  virtue  to  avoid 
wickedness  for  the  sake  of  some  useful  end.  If  one 
were  to  ask  whether  it  is  more  useful  to  be  right- 
eous than  to  be  unrighteous,  the  question  would  be 
as  unreasonable  as  though  one  were  to  ask  whether 
it  is  better  to  be  well  or  sick,  to  have  a  spoiled  and 
useless  or  a  thorough  soul.  So  unconditioned  and 
so  all-surpassing  is  the  inner  value  of  virtue,  that 
the  righteous  man  is  to  be  regarded  as  happy  even 
though  he  be  misunderstood  and  persecuted  by  gods 
and  men,  while  the  blasphemer  is  miserable  even 

208 


The  Greek   Religion 

though  he  is  able  to  hide  his  wickedness  from  both 
of  them.  This  latter  case,  however,  is  actually  not 
thinkable,  because  the  good  and  the  bad  get  their 
reward,  usually  in  this  life,  but  if  not  now,  certainly, 
in  any  event  after  death.  For  just  as  little  as 
the  righteous  can  be  forsaken  by  God,  so  it  is 
impossible  for  the  wicked  to  escape  His  punishment. 
When  a  soul,  in  accordance  with  its  divine  nature, 
preserves  itself  pure  of  the  body  and  prepares  itself 
for  death  by  the  persistent  striving  for  wisdom, 
then  it  may  hope  to  go  to  its  like,  the  invisible  and 
eternal  and  divine,  where  a  like  happy  lot  awaits  it, 
a  life  of  bliss  with  the  gods,  free  from  error  and 
passion  and  other  human  ills.  But  those  souls 
which  persisted  in  clinging  to  the  sensual  and  hated 
the  spiritual,  are  held  fast  to  the  earth  by  their  low 
instinct  and  are  dragged  to  new  bodies  after  death, 
into  human  or  animal  bodies,  each  after  its  own 
kind.  Only  those  souls  become  of  the  race  of  the 
gods,  which  have  withstood  desires  of  the  body 
and  sought  salvation  and  purification  through  love 
of  wisdom,  nourishing  themselves  by  cemstant  con- 
templation of  the  true  and  the  godlike. 

Thus  the  Eleusinian  and  Orphic  mysticism  is 
here  spiritualized  to  an  ethical  idealism,  which  of- 
fers to  man,  as  his  highest  object  and  his  highest 
good,  the  greatest  possible  likeness  to  and  the  most 
intimate  community  with  God.  the  prototype  and 
principle  of  all  good;  an  ethical  idealism,  which  finds 
the  power  capable  of  such  elevating,  in  the  divine- 

209 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

human  spirit  of  the  Eros,  the  inspired  love  of  that 
which  is  from  above,  the  true,  good  and  beautiful. 
A  comparison  with  Augustine's  words :  "  Because 
we  are  created  for  God,  therefore  is  the  heart  rest- 
less until  it  finds  rest  in  Him,"  will  be  followed  by 
an  acknowledgment  of  the  preparation  for  Chris- 
tianity, contained  in  the  religion  and  ethics  of  Plato. 


910 


XII 


THE   RELIGION   OF   ISRAEL 


We  come  to  the  religion  of  Israel,  the  prophetic 
religion  in  a  high  sense.  Taken  according  to  time 
and  importance,  we  ought  really  to  have  treated  it 
before  the  other  prophetic  religions,  even  before 
that  of  Zarathustra.  But  I  have  purposely  with- 
held it  until  now  in  order  not  to  break  the  his- 
torical connection  with  later  Judaism  and  with 
Christianity. 

It  is  a  pity  that  the  beginnings  of  the  Israelitish 
religion,  as  the  beginnings  of  most  religions,  are 
shrouded  in  deep  darkness.  The  information  con- 
tained in  the  Books  of  Moses  concerning  those  be- 
ginnings is  legendary;  any  one  who  understands 
how  to  judge  historically  in  such  matters  will  see 
clearly  that  the  events  could  not  actually  have  taken 
place  as  they  are  narrated  in  the  Bible.  Two 
groups  of  these  legends  may  be  distinguished.  The 
first  group  tells  of  the  patriarchs  Abraham,  Isaac, 
Jacob  and  his  sons.  These  are  really  myths,  orig- 
inally legends  of  the  gods,  in  which  divine  beings  or 
deified  heroes,  the  heroes  eponymi  of  the  Israelitish 
tribes,  became  men,  of  whom,  in  the  manner  usual 

211 


Religion  and   Historic   Faiths 

in  epics,  human  experiences  and  deeds  are  reported. 
We  have  as  little  right  to  search  for  historical  mat- 
ter in  these  legends  as  in  the  Homeric  narrative  of 
the  Trojan  heroes. 

The  matter  is  somewhat  different  in  regard  to 
the  second  group  of  legends,  those  concerning 
Moses.  Here,  too,  we  find  ourselves  at  first,  still 
in  the  realm  of  legend.  The  stories  of  the  exposure 
and  miraculous  rescue  of  the  infant  Moses  have 
their  parallels  in  the  legends  concerning  the  child- 
hood of  the  Assyrian  king  Sargon,  the  Median  king 
Kyros,  the  Iranian  prophet  Zarathustra,  the  Indian 
hero  Krischna  and  the  Greek  hero  Herakles,  the 
Roman  emperor  Augustus  and  the  Christian  Sav- 
iour Jesus, — all  legends,  which,  by  their  close  re- 
lationship to  one  another,  betray  their  origin  in  the 
similar  motives  of  ancient  folk-poetry.  Further, 
the  adventures  of  Moses  in  exile,  the  appearance  of 
God  in  the  burning  thorn-bush,  the  salvation  from 
death  in  the  desert  by  the  penitential  blood  of 
the  circumcision  of  his  son,  then  the  manner  in 
which,  after  his  return  to  Egypt,  he  demands  the 
dismissal  of  the  people  of  Israel  by  Pharaoh,  the 
miracles  which  he  performs,  the  miracle  of  the  res- 
cue of  the  Israelites  at  the  Red  Sea,  the  giving  of 
the  law  on  Mount  Horeb  in  personal  dialogue  with 
God,  finally  the  wandering  of  the  people  in  the 
desert,  where  two  million  souls  are  supposed  to  have 
found  sustenance  for  forty  years — all  of  this,  by 
its  own  inner  improbability,  betrays  its  late  legend- 

212 


The  Religion  of  Israel 

ary  character.  To  this  must  be  added  the  historical 
data  recently  furnished  by  the  Egyptian  clay-tab- 
lets found  in  Tellamarna,  the  residence  of  the 
heretical  King  Amenophis  IV,  who  lived  about 
1400  B.c.^  and  whom  you  will  probably  remember 
from  the  history  of  the  Egyptian  religion.  One 
of  his  vassals  writes  from  Jerusalem  (which  was  in 
existence  even  at  that  time)  begging  for  help 
against  the  Chabiri,  a  martial  nation  who  had  forced 
themselves  into  Canaan.  If,  as  is  etymologically 
very  probable,  the  Chabiri  are  identical  with  the 
Hebrews,  it  follows  that  they  had  forced  themselves 
into  Canaan  about  1400,  that  is,  long  before  Ram- 
ses II,  during  whose  reign  (about  1250)  the  two 
cities  of  Ramses  and  Pithom,  for  which  the  Israel- 
ites were  forced  to  perform  slave-services  (accord- 
ing to  Exodus  i,  11)  were  built.  Then,  too,  in  an 
inscription  of  the  reign  of  Merneptah,  the  son  and 
successor  of  Ramses,  under  whom  the  exodus  of 
the  Israelites  is  supposed  to  have  taken  place,  the 
Israelites  are  expressly  mentioned  among  other 
conquered  Canaanitish  peoples,  in  fact,  as  one  of  the 
races  whose  territory  had  been  laid  waste;  while, 
concerning  their  flight  from  Egypt  and  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  Egyptian  host  which  followed  after 
them,  there  is  no  trace  either  here  or  anywhere  else 
in  the  Egyptian  monuments.  Thus  you  see  that 
these  things  could  not  have  taken  place  as  the 
Bible  narrates  tliem.  What  the  actual  course  of 
events  was,  is  purely  a  matter  of  suppositions. 

213 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

Some  have  thought  that  the  flight  of  the  Israel- 
ites from  Eg}'pt  and  the  person  of  Moses  are  mere 
fictions.  That  is  going  too  far;  the  matter  is  not 
as  bad  as  that.  As  far  as  the  person  of  Moses  is 
concerned,  careful  research  students  of  to-day  are 
of  one  opinion,  that,  much  as  legend  may  have 
woven  fables  about  him,  yet  he  was  a  historical 
figure  of  great  importance.  Of  what  nature  is  his 
importance?  That  is  the  only  question.  Was  he 
actually  the  man  who  led  the  great  mass  of  his  peo- 
ple out  of  Egypt?  Did  he  then  solemnly  receive 
the  laws  of  God  and  bring  them  to  his  people  ?  That 
can  hardly  be  accepted.  If,  however,  we  observe 
what  is  said  about  him  in  the  "  blessing  of  Moses," 
(Deut.  xxxii, — a  very  ancient  document),  certain 
fundamental  features  may  be  recognized.  He  is 
there  set  up  as  nothing  else  than  the  ancestor  and 
prototype  of  the  professional  Levitical  priesthood, 
whose  "  Urim  and  Thummim  "  (oracles  by  lot) 
were  in  his  hand ;  that  is,  as  an  oracle-priest,  he  dealt 
out  admonitions  and  law,  as  it  is  customary  among 
nomads,  that  the  priest  is  at  once  soothsayer  and 
judge.  He  did  this  at  the  "  lawing-well "  of 
Kadesh-Barnea,  an  oasis,  which  thereupon  became 
a  place  of  oracles  and  law  for  those  of  the  nomadic 
tribes  which  roamed  al)Out  the  north-Arabian  steppe 
in  its  vicinity.  In  harmony  therewith,  is  the  state- 
ment that  Moses  was  the  son-in-law  of  the  Midianite 
priest-prince  Jethro  and  guarded  his  sheep  on 
Horeb,  where  Jehovah,  the  god  of  the  mountain,  re- 

214 


The  Religion  of  Israel 

vealed  himself  to  him  in  a  flame  of  fire  (Exo- 
dus iii,  i),  also,  that,  acting  upon  the  counsel  of 
his  father-in-law  later,  he  chose  thorough  men  from 
among  the  people  to  assist  him  in  dispensing  jus- 
tice, in  short,  that  he  established  a  kind  of  organiza- 
tion of  legal  procedure,  the  beginnings  of  a  civil 
order  among  the  nomadic  tribes  of  the  steppe. 
(Exodus  xviii,  13.)  Hence,  we  may  picture  Moses, 
for  ourselves,  as  a  priest  and  a  judge,  who,  in  the 
name  of  the  god  Jehovah,  whom  he  had  learned 
to  know  from  the  Midianites  (and  Kenites),  dealt 
out  oracles  and  justice  for  some  of  the  Israelitish 
nomadic  tribes,  and  therewith  laid  the  foundation 
for  their  religious-political  alliance,  out  of  which, 
in  due  time,  grew  the  unity  of  **  the  people  of 
Israel."  That  much  I  hold  to  be  historically  prob- 
able ;  I  do  not  dare  to  say  anything  as  to  the  rela- 
tion which  it  may  have  to  the  legend  of  the  exodus 
from  Egypt  and  Moses's  part  as  leader  in  that  de- 
parture ;  later  legend  has  so  enveloped  the  historical 
kernel  that  it  is  doubtful  whether  it  ever  can  be 
brought  to  light  again. 

More  important,  however,  is  the  question :  What 
was  that  god  originally,  that  Jehovah,  in  whose 
name  Moses  dealt  out  oracles  and  legal  decisions 
and  under  whose  protection  the  allied  tribes  of  the 
Sinai  peninsula  journeyed  to  the  north  and  forced 
their  way  into  Canaan?  Jehovah  was  the  god  of 
Mount  Horeb  or  Sinai,  and  his  seat  is  thought  to  be 
there  even  in  later  days.     The  song  of  Deborah, 

215 


Religion  and   Historic  Faiths 

probably  the  oldest  piece  of  writing  in  tlie  Bible, 
(Judges  v),  describes  him  as  coming  from  there: 

"  Jehovah,  when  thou  wentest  forth  out  of  Seir. 
When  thou  marchedst  out  of  the  field  of  Edom, 
The  earth  trembled,  the  heavens  also  dropped 
Yea,  the  clouds  dropped  water. 

The  mountains  flowed  down  at  the  presence  of  Jehovah, 
Even  yon  Sinai  at  the  presence  of  Jehovah,  the  god  of 
Israel. '- 

Hence  he  was  the  god  of  the  mountain,  and  of  the 
lightning  and  thunder-storms  which  raged  about 
it — the  lightning  was  his  weapon  in  war,  the  thun- 
der his  fearful  voice,  (Psalm  xviii),  the  cloud  of  fire 
his  form  of  appearance  in  the  desert.  So,  you  might 
ask,  was  Jehovah  no  more  than  a  nature-power 
personified,  just  as  the  gods  of  other  peoples? 
Truly,  that  is  what  he  was  originally,  but  that  he 
became  in  the  course  of  time  something  so  incom- 
parably different  and  higher  is  not  to  be  explained 
from  his  original  meaning  but  from  the  history  of 
his  people;  the  God  of  Israel  acquired  his  content 
and  his  importance  in  and  with  the  history  of  his 
adherents ;  he  is  specifically  a  historical  god.  The 
process  of  that  becoming  forms  the  subject  matter 
of  the  history  of  the  religion  of  Israel. 

First,  we  must  note  carefully  that  the  immi- 
gration of  the  Israelitish  tribes  did  not  occur  at 
one  time,  as  the  later  legend  said  it  did,  but  that 
it  occurred  gradually  and  from  various  districts. 
While  those  tribes  which  entered  into  the  middle 
and    north    of    Canaan,    under   the    leadership    of 

216 


The  Religion  of  Israel] 

Ephraim,  came  over  the  Jordan,  the  Judaeans  of 
the  south,  from  the  neighborhood  of  Kadesh- 
Barnea  (where  they  were  originally  native)  gradu- 
ally pushed  on  to  the  north  in  the  direction  of 
Jerusalem.  In  the  early  days,  those  were  two  sepa- 
rate streams,  which  did  not  unite  until  the  time  of 
David ;  before  that  time  they  were  separated  by  a 
belt  of  fortified  Canaanitish  cities  which  the  Israel- 
ites were  unable  to  conquer,  being  technically 
weaker  in  the  art  of  war.  On  the  flat  land  only 
did  the  Israelitish  nomadic  tribes  first  gain  a  foot- 
hold ;  they  did  not  drive  out  the  Canaanitish  natives 
dwelling  there,  but  they  settled  among  them,  en- 
tered into  peaceful,  neighborly  relations  with  them 
'and  learned  the  works  of  civilization  from  them, 
especially  husbandry  and  vine-growing.  The  nat- 
ural consequence  of  this  mingling  of  Israelites  and 
Canaanites  was  a  mixing  of  the  religious  notions 
and  customs  of  the  two  peoples.  The  Israelites, 
having  become  peasants,  could  no  longer  rest  satis- 
fied with  their  former  nomad-religion  and  its  pov- 
erty of  rites  for  the  worship  of  God ;  they  could  not 
avoid  celebrating  the  local  festivals  with  their 
Canaanitish  neighbors,  at  which  the  Raals,  the  gods 
of  the  separate  valleys,  were  worshipi)cd  as  the 
lords  of  the  earth  and  the  givers  of  its  fruits.  There 
was  no  one  Baal  who  was  the  god  of  all  the  land 
of  Canaan,  but  each  separate  district  had  its  par- 
ticular Baal,  that  means  master,  and  to  him  the  dis- 
trict owed  the  fruitfulness  of  its  soil.     Thus  the 

217 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

Israelites,  now  become  peasants,  were  brought  under 
the  lordship  of  the  Baals,  the  district  and  fertility- 
gods  of  Canaan ;  but  that  does  not  mean  that  they 
had  forsaken  Jehovah,  the  God  of  their  nomadic 
period.  He  was  still  the  God  common  to  the  allied 
tribes,  under  whose  name  and  protection  the  vic- 
torious advance  upon  Canaan  had  been  successfully 
carried  out;  none  the  less  was  he  the  God  of  the 
mountain,  dwelling  for  the  most  part  on  Sinai  it 
was  thought,  active  periodically  and  intermittently 
as  experience  showed.  Whenever  war  broke  out, 
Jehovah  would  hurry  down  from  Sinai  to  aid  his 
people ;  like  a  storm-wind  he  would  sweep  through 
the  land,  inspire  his  heroes,  gather  his  hosts  and 
lead  them  to  battle  and  to  victory.  After  the  vic- 
tory had  been  won  and  the  returning  host,  scattered 
lo  their  various  localities,  took  up  once  more  their 
peasant-tasks,  the  martial  god  of  Mount  Sinai  had 
nothing  to  do  with  them,  but  his  place  was  taken 
by  the  Baalim,  the  nearer  gods  of  the  fruitful  soil. 
That  was  not  really  a  "  desertion  of  Jehovah  "  as 
the  later  historians  were  wont  to  describe  it,  for, 
at  that  time,  the  opposition  of  the  Jehovah  worship 
to  the  Baal  worship  was  not  so  mutually  exclusive 
as  later  on,  but  one  existed  alongside  the  other;  they 
were  mutually  complementary.  The  belief  in  and 
worship  of  Jehovah,  however,  had  its  ebb  and  its 
flood-tides,  and  these  variations  corresponded  to  the 
changes  in  the  external  conditions  of  the  Israelites. 
This  condition  of  mixed  religions  lasted  during 
218 


The  Religion  of  Israel 

the  entire  period  of  the  judges  and  the  older  kings. 
All  of  the  ceremonies,  especially  the  festivals,  give 
evidence  of  it.  The  three  principal  festivals  of  the 
Israelites  were  the  Spring-festival  of  the  unleavened 
bread  (the  first  barley-harvest),  the  Summer-fes- 
tival of  the  wheat-harvest  and  the  Autumn-festival 
of  the  vintage — all  of  them  agricultural  festivals, 
which  the  Israelites  could  not  have  celebrated  in  the 
desert,  but  acquired  after  they  settled  down  as 
peasants.  The  Pesach  (Passah)  was  the  one  fes- 
tival which  they  had  retained  from  their  nomadic 
stage  and  that  one  they  preserved ;  originally  it  had 
been  the  Spring-festival  of  the  nomads  at  which  the 
first-born  of  the  lambs  were  offered  and  eaten  as  a 
sacrificial-meal.  This  nomad  festival,  correspond- 
ing almost  exactly  in  time,  was  now  united  with  the 
peasant  festival  of  unleavened  bread;  at  a  later 
time  the  union  of  differing  customs  was  artificially 
explained  by  the  legend  of  the  exodus  from  Eg>'pt, 
in  commemoration  of  which  the  Passah  was  sup- 
posed to  be  celebrated, — an  instructive  example  of 
the  use  of  a  religious  legend  as  the  subsequent  in- 
terpretation of  ancient  customs  which  had  become 
unintelligible.  The  same  holds  true  of  the  sacred 
places.  In  previous  times,  the  nomadic  tribes  had 
been  wont  to  gather  once  a  year  at  some  common 
sanctuary,  some  place  of  oracles  and  of  judgments, 
such  as  Kadesh-Bamea,  and,  during  their  wan- 
derings, they  had  no  other  sacred  places.  In  the 
land  of  Canaan,  however,  they  found  a  number  of 

219 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

such  places  of  worship :  in  every  district,  there  were 
sacred  trees,  sacred  wells  and  sacred  stones,  in 
which,  according  to  the  belief  of  the  inhabitants, 
there  dwelt  divine  beings,  who  revealed  themselves 
there.  What  else  could  the  Hebrews  do  but  seek 
oracles  in  the  same  places  and  celebrate  their  festi- 
vals there?  In  early  days,  that  was  not  considered 
impious;  Jehovah  and  the  Baalim  were  impartially 
worshipped  alongside  one  another  at  the  same 
places.  Later  on,  the  strict  servants  of  Jehovah  be- 
came suspicious  of  such  worship  and  yet  they  could 
not  prevent  it  at  the  popular  sanctuaries.  What 
was  to  be  done?  The  old  sanctuaries  were  main- 
tained, but  a  new  meaning  was  given  to  them ;  the 
local  legends  of  Canaan  were  changed  into  the  patri- 
archal legends  of  the  Israelites.  The  grove  of 
Mamre  or  Hebron,  the  well  of  Beersheba,  and  the 
stone  of  Bethel  were  now  supposed  to  have  achieved 
their  sanctity  through  the  facts  that  in  the  early 
days,  these  were  the  places  at  which  Abraham,  Isaac 
and  Jacob  had  rested  and  received  divine  revelations, 
and  they  had  established  places  of  worship  to  the 
God  of  Israel  there. 

Thus,  the  Israel itish  poets  who  composed  the 
pious  legends  annexed  the  ancient  sanctuaries  of 
Canaan  for  Jehovah,  the  God  of  their  people.  The 
same  thing  has  happened  repeatedly  in  the  history 
of  the  Christian  Church;  when  Christianity  spread 
abroad  among  the  pagan  peoples,  it  transformed  the 
places  sacred  to  the  gods  and  heroes  of  the  heathens 

220 


The  Religion  of  Israel 

into  chapels  of  its  own  saints,  and  yet,  in  so  doing, 
it  was  not  able  to  suppress  the  old  heathen  rites 
entirely,  but  had  to  suffer  them  to  continue  under 
Christian  labels.  In  ancient  Israel,  the  same  thing 
happened.  These  Canaanitish  places  of  worship 
were  equipped  with  idols,  the  Asherahs  and  Masse- 
both,  which  were  stone  pillars  or  wooden  poles,  and 
were  looked  upon  as  images  or  dwelling-places 
(fetishes)  of  the  local  deity.  The  Israelites  re- 
tained these  idols,  giving  them  the  new  relation  to 
Jehovah.  Besides,  they  had  their  '*  ark  of  Jehovah," 
which  was  carried  along  in  military  expeditions,  but, 
at  other  times,  was  stationed  in  a  sanctuary,  in  early 
days  at  Silo,  and  later  at  Jerusalem.  By  and 
through  the  ark,  the  effective  power  of  Jehovah  was 
in  some  mysterious  manner  supposed  to  be  present. 
Hence  the  fear  that  the  aid  of  Jehovah  has  been  lost, 
when,  after  an  unfortunate  battle,  the  ark  falls  into 
the  hands  of  the  Philistines.  But  Jehovah  showed 
himself  to  be  loyal  to  his  people :  by  means  of  dire 
plagues,  the  Philistines  soon  learned  that  it  was  not 
safe  to  hold  that  ark  and  they  sent  the  uncomfort- 
able visitor  home  again  as  rapidly  as  they  could. 

A  remarkable  legend  is  told  which  shows  how 
crudely  realistic  was  the  notion  of  the  attachment  of 
the  miraculous  power  of  the  God  and  the  visible 
symbol  of  worship.  A  similar  idol  was  that  image 
of  a  bull,  erected  at  Dan  and  Bethel,  places  of  wor- 
ship in  the  kingdom  of  Ephraim,  and  set  up  by 
kings  who  were  believers  in  Jehovah ;  nobody  took 

221 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

offense.  Jehovah  was  represented  by  the  image  of 
the  bull,  exactly  as  the  other  Semites  were  wont  to 
depict  their  gods  by  the  same  image ;  not  until  later 
did  the  prophets  condemn  this  as  idolatry.  Finally, 
the  mixing  of  the  two  religions  found  peculiar  ex- 
pression in  the  name  of  God  itself.  The  uncertain 
multiplicity  of  the  individual  local  gods  and  spirits 
was  subsumed  under  the  collective  idea  of  the 
Elohim  (world  of  spirits,  deity)  and  this  was  identi- 
fied with  Jehovah,  by  a  combination  of  the  two 
names  into  one — Elohim-Jehovah.  Was  that  in- 
tended to  convey  that  Jehovah  had  been  merged  into 
the  Elohim  ?  Or  that  the  Elohim  had  been  absorbed 
by  Jehovah  ?  For  the  mass  of  the  people,  the  answer 
would  be  doubtful  for  a  long  period  of  time,  but 
finally,  Jehovah  emerged  from  the  contest  alone,  the 
victor.  What  causes  helped  to  bring  about  that 
result  ? 

On  the  part  of  certain  puritanical  extremists 
descended  from  the  Kenitic  nomads  (later  known  as 
Rechabites  and  resembling  the  Nazarites)  there  had 
been  a  powerful  opposition  from  early  days  against 
the  entanglement  of  the  Israelites  in  the  culture 
and  religion  of  the  Canaanites.  They  were  a  sect  of 
ascetics  opposed  to  civilization;  they  maintained 
that  the  primitive  nomadic  life  on  the  steppes  was 
the  ideal  truly  pleasing  to  God.  They  dwelt  in 
tents,  not  in  houses;  they  were  not  engaged  in 
agriculture  and  they  drank  no  wine.  It  was  an 
energetic  reaction  against  the  doubtful  "  blessings 

222 


The  Religion  of  Israel 

of  culture,"  which,  naturally,  could  not  succeed  in 
this  extreme  form;  nobody  dreamed  of  exchanging 
the  settled  life  of  the  peasant  by  a  return  to  the 
nomadic  existence  of  the  poor  shepherd.  How- 
ever, the  rise  of  these  peculiar  dreamers  acted  as  an 
earnest  reminder  of  the  old  simple  and  sober 
nomadic  life  with  the  heavens  for  a  roof  and  the 
sole  protection  of  the  stern  God  of  the  desert,  the 
terrible  God  of  war,  Jehovah.  A  deeper  impression 
was  made  by  the  appearance  of  the  Nebiim  who 
were  not,  in  the  beginning,  what  we  understand 
by  the  word  prophets,  but  were,  rather,  ecstatic  vis- 
ionaries who  wandered  through  the  land  in  com- 
panies after  the  fashion  of  the  Corybantes  or  the 
native  Dervishes  and  created  the  impression  of 
being  possessed  or  inspired  by  their  mad  actions. 
There  were  similar  characters  among  the  Canaanites 
(as  there  were  also  in  many  of  the  nature-religions) 
and  their  appearance  among  the  Israelites  may  per- 
haps be  traced  to  them ;  but  from  the  beginning, 
they  achieved  greater  importance  among  the  Israel- 
ites because  they  became  the  bearers  of  the  national 
religious  inspiration  during  the  times  of  greatest 
oppression  at  the  hands  of  the  Philistines.  Wher- 
ever the  great  mass  of  lazy  or  cowardly  Israelites 
were  about  to  yield  or  compromise,  there  these  in- 
spired men  appeared,  and  in  the  name  of  Jehovah 
roused  the  courage  for  the  cause  of  national  eleva- 
tion and  freedom,  so  that  Jehovah  seemed  to  speak 
through    them    and    promise    his   assistance.     The 

223 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

consequence  of  this  exaltation  was  that  develop- 
ment of  national  power  which  came  in  the  time  of 
Saul  and  David  and  finally  meant  the  victory  of 
Jehovah  over  the  Baals  of  Canaan. 

Of  more  importance,  however,  for  the  religion  of 
Israel,  was  the  activity  of  the  two  allied  opposition 
parties,  the  puritans  and  the  prophets,  in  the  days 
of  Ahab.  When  King  Ahab  introduced  the  Tyrian 
worship  of  Baal  in  Samaria  in  order  to  please  Jeze- 
bel, his  Phoenician  wife,  the  pious  servants  of  Jeho- 
vah feared  that  the  rise  and  spread  of  this  strange 
worship  might  lead,  in  the  end,  to  the  extirpation 
of  the  national  worship  of  Jehovah.  At  this  criti- 
cal juncture  rose  the  powerful  figure  of  the  prophet 
Elijah  the  Tishbite.  He  openly  opposed  the  King 
and  combatted  his  misrule,  both  from  the  religious 
and  the  ethical  standpoint.  For  Ahab  had  not  only 
placed  the  worship  of  the  strange  idols  on  the  same 
level  with  that  of  Jehovah,  but  he  had  oppressed  the 
poor,  he  had  increased  his  lands  by  illegal  and 
forcible  means,  as  the  well-known  story  of  the  vine- 
yard of  Naboth  proves.  Thus  it  was  the  religious 
and  the  moral  conscience  which  urged  Elijah  the 
prophet  to  enter  into  opposition  to  the  King  and 
give  testimony  for  Jehovah  as  the  one  God  of  justice 
and  of  righteousness.  Persecuted  by  the  King  and 
the  priests  of  Baal,  the  prophet  was  forced  to  fly. 
He  escaped  to  Mount  Horeb,  the  dwelling-place  of 
his  God,  and  there  experienced  a  miraculous  revela- 
vion.     Outside  of  the  cave  in  which  he  had  spent 

224 


The  Religion  of  Israel 

the  night,  there  raged  a  powerful  wind-storm,  a 
great  and  strong  wind  rent  the  mountains  and  broke 
the  rocks  in  pieces,  but  Jehovah  was  not  in  the  wind  ; 
then  came  an  earthquake,  but  Jehovah  was  not  in 
the  earthquake;  then  came  a  fire  but  Jehovah  was 
not  in  the  fire ;  then  a  soft  murmur  was  heard,  and 
Ehjah  covered  his  face  with  his  mantle.  Stepping 
out  of  the  cave,  he  heard  a  voice  which  asked  him : 
What  doest  thou  here,  EHjah  ?  Then  the  prophet 
made  his  complaint  that  he  has  been  jealous  in  the 
cause  of  Jehovah,  but  that  he  alone  of  all  the  loyal 
ones  was  living  and  that  now  even  his  death 
was  sought.  But  Jehovah  consoles  him :  "  Yet  I 
have  left  me  seven  thousand  in  Israel,  all  the  knees 
which  have  not  bowed  unto  Baal."  (I  Kings,  xix, 
lo  seq.) 

The  life-work  of  Elijah  was  a  turning-point  in 
the  history  of  the  religion  of  Israel,  similar  in  its 
consequences  to  those  which  followed  the  appear- 
ance of  Zarathustra  in  Iran.  As  the  latter,  so 
Elijah  forced  the  people  to  a  decisive  choice  between 
the  lying  gods  or  the  one  God  who  alone  is  true 
because  he  is  the  God  of  justice  and  of  righteous- 
ness: "How  long  halt  ye  between  two  opinions? 
If  the  Lord  be  (the  true)  God.  follow  him:  but  if 
Baal,  then  follow  him."  (I  Kings,  xviii,  21.)  It 
was  the  ethical  idea  of  God  matured  in  the  soul  of 
the  prophet  by  the  need  of  his  time  which  broke 
through  with  irresistible  power  to  the  demand  for  a 
final  choice  between  Jehovah,  the  holy  God,  and  the 

225 


Religion   and   Historic   Faiths 

unholy  nature-gods  of  the  heathen.  Therewith  Je- 
hovah, the  God  of  the  people  of  Israel,  became  the 
God  of  the  moral  world-order  who  alone  could  lay- 
claim  to  the  right  of  rulership  and  who  soon  was 
recognized  as  truly  the  one. 

In  the  path  opened  up  by  Elijah  followed  the 
prophets  of  the  eighth  century,  of  whom  we  have 
written  documents,  and  they  became  the  creators  of 
an  ethical  monotheism  from  which  even  a  Moses 
and  a  David  had  been  far  removed,  Amos  preached 
to  the  unthinking  Israelites  that  they  should  not 
brag  of  the  protection  of  Jehovah  as  long  as  they 
made  themselves  unworthy  of  it  by  their  unright- 
eousness; that  he  himself  is  not  bound  to  any  one 
people,  the  stranger  peoples  stand  under  his  rule  and 
must  serve  as  rods  for  the  chastisement  of  his  dis- 
loyal people.  With  powerful  words,  he  thunders 
against  the  semblance  of  piety  of  their  external  wor- 
ship of  God :  Not  the  burnt  offerings,  nor  the  peace 
offerings,  nor  the  noise  of  songs,  is  pleasing  to  God ; 
"  but  let  judgment  roll  down  as  waters  and  right- 
eousness as  ever  flowing  streams;  seek  the  good 
and  not  the  bad,  then  ye  shall  live,  thus  (alone) 
shall  Jehovah  be  with  ye  as  ye  say."  Hosea's  say- 
ing is  well  known :  *'  Not  sacrifices  but  mercy  and 
judgment  do  I  desire.''  Mercy  and  judgment!  With 
them  a  softer  note  is  heard ;  not  only  righteousness 
in  the  legal  sense,  but  active  humanity  is  demanded 
by  the  religion  of  Jehovah,  in  whose  ethical  nature, 
for  the  first  time  there  appears  through  the  agency 

226 


The  Religion  of  Israel 

of  Hosea  the  milder  features  of  forbearance  and 
forgiving  grace. 

Soon  after  these  two  prophets  who  were  active 
in  the  kingdom  of  Ephraim,  Isaiah  appears  at  the 
court  of  the  Kings  Ahaz  and  Hezekiah  in  Jerusalem. 
He  too  thunders  against  the  "  lying  sacrifices"  and 
the  pseudo-pious  worshippers  whose  hands  are  full 
of  blood ;  instead  of  which  he  demands  the  service 
of  God  by  righteous  living :  "  Put  away  the  evil  of 
your  doings  from  before  mine  eyes;  cease  to  do 
evil,  learn  to  do  well,  seek  judgment,  relieve  the  op- 
pressed, judge  the  fatherless,  plead  for  the  widow." 
Thus,  the  qualities  by  which  Jehovah  is  to  be 
worshipped  through  service  are  humanity,  brother- 
liness,  and  readiness  to  help.  You  see.  therefore, 
that  it  is  the  social-ethical  conscience  born  in  this 
prophet  of  the  pressure  of  bad  social  conditions 
that  creates  the  higher  ideal  of  God.  But  this  ideal 
found  so  little  response  that  Isaiah  declares  in  bit- 
ter pessimism  that  the  obstinacy  of  this  people  is  the 
cause  of  his  mission,  (vi.  9.  seq.)  The  opposition 
of  a  stolid  world  serves  only  to  increase  his  confi- 
dence in  God :  above  the  gloom  of  the  present  his 
prophetic,  hopeful  vision  lifted  itself  to  a  more 
glorious  future  wherein  his  people,  now  wandering 
in  darkness,  will  see  a  great  light  and  upon  the 
throne  of  David  there  will  sit  a  wonderful  hero 
and  prince  of  peace  in  whose  realm  there  will  be 
joy  without  end.   (ix.  i,  seq.) 

Isaiah's  favorable  influence  upon  the  government 
2^ 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

of  Hezekiah  was  without  permanent  results.  Dur- 
ing the  reign  of  his  successor,  Manasseh,  idolatry- 
was  at  its  worst:  in  Jerusalem,  in  the  very  temple 
of  Jehovah,  could  be  seen  the  Phoenician  sacrifice  of 
children  and  the  Babylonian  worship  of  Istar  and 
her  sun.  Not  until  the  reign  of  Josiah,  the  grand- 
son of  Hezekiah,  did  the  prophetic  religious  ideal 
find  practical  application  through  the  united  efforts 
of  the  King  and  the  priesthood.  The  heathen 
forms  of  worship  in  Jerusalem  were  abolished  and, 
in  order  to  root  out  entirely  the  semi-heathenism 
of  the  local  forms  of  worship  in  the  country,  all 
sacrificial  services  at  sanctuaries  outside  of  Jeru- 
salem (on  the  high  places)  were  forbidden  and  sac- 
rifices to  Jehovah  confined  entirely  to  the  temple  at 
Jerusalem.  At  the  same  time,  the  prophetic  ideal 
of  the  religion  of  Jehovah  was  fixed  in  a  law-book 
supposed  to  have  been  found  in  the  temple  and,  with- 
out doubt,  composed  by  the  priesthood  there:  it  is 
the  law  preserved  for  us  in  the  fifth  book  of  Moses 
and  known  as  Deuteronomy.  Therein  the  worship 
of  Jehovah  as  the  one  God,  and  the  sincere  love  of 
him,  is  set  up  as  the  highest  principle ;  upon  that,  a 
simple,  civil  and  generally  humane  system  of  duties 
is  based — a  sound  and  humane  ethics  correspond- 
ing to  the  spirit  of  the  prophetic  religion.  The 
proclamation  of  this  law,  621  b.c,  was  the  means 
of  making  this  religion,  which  had  until  then  lived 
only  in  the  hearts  of  the  best,  the  affair  of  all  and 
a  permanent  institution. 

228 


The  Religion  of  Israel 

Naturally,  it  was  soon  seen  that  laws  and  the 
institution  of  a  purer  order  of  divine  worship  were 
not  sufficient  to  change  the  spirit  of  the  people. 
The  masses  as  well  as  the  priests  fell  under  the  illu- 
sion that  everything  was  done  when  the  practices 
laid  down  by  the  law  for  temple-service  had  been 
done,  that  then  the  help  of  Jehovah  against  dangers 
which  might  threaten  would  certainly  be  forthcom- 
ing. Then  it  was  that  Jeremiah,  the  sublimest  and 
most  tragical  of  the  great  prophetic  figures,  under- 
took to  combat  this  illusion  and,  with  a  courage 
that  recognized  neither  high  nor  low,  attacked  this 
false  certainty.  He  warned  sharply  against  the 
human  trust  in  the  temple,  which,  by  immoral  life, 
was  transformed  into  a  murderer's  den,  and  called 
attention  to  the  correct  knowledge  of  the  law  where 
the  life  did  not  conform  tliereto;  lying  prophets 
was  the  name  he  applied  to  those  optimistic  preach- 
ers of  peace  who  closed  their  eyes  to  the  approach- 
ing judgments  and  lulled  the  people  and  their 
leaders  to  rest  in  fateful  security.  But,  though  he 
saw  that  there  was  no  escape  from  the  heaviest 
blows  which  fate  had  in  store  for  both  city  and 
state,  his  faith  in  the  permanence  of  the  covenant 
between  Jehovah  and  his  people  remained  unshaken. 
Even  in  the  future,  he  saw,  as  the  last  fruit  of  the 
impending  heavy  judgments,  a  new  period  of  sal- 
vation, the  dawn  of  a  day  when  religion  would  be 
entirely  within  man  and  the  knowledge  of  God 
would  be  universal. 

229 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

"  Behold,  the  days  come,  saith  the  Lord,  that  I  will  make 
a  new  covenant  with  the  house  of  Israel,  and  with  the  house 
of  Judah:  Not  according  to  the  covenant  that  I  made  with 
their  fathers  in  the  days  that  I  took  them  by  the  hand  to 
bring  them  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt;  which  my  covenant 
they  brake,  although  I  was  an  husband  unto  them,  saith 
the  Lord;  But  this  shall  be  the  covenant  that  I  will  make 
with  the  house  of  Israel;  After  those  days,  saith  the  Lord, 
I  will  put  my  law  in  their  inward  parts,  and  write  it  in  their 
hearts;  and  will  be  their  God  and  they  shall  be  my  people. 
And  they  shall  teach  no  more  every  man  his  neighbor,  and 
every  man  his  brother,  saying.  Know  the  Lord :  for  they  shall 
all  know  me,  from  the  least  of  them  unto  the  greatest  of 
them,  saith  the  Lord:  for  I  will  forgive  their  iniquity,  and 
I  will  remember  their  sin  no  more."     (Jer.  xxxi,  31,  seq.) 


230 


XIII 

POST-EXILIC   JUDAISM 

The  punishments  which  Jeremiah  had  prophesied 
came  to  pass :  Jerusalem  was  destroyed,  the  greater 
number  of  the  Jews  carried  off  into  exile  to  Baby- 
lon (586  B.C.)-  That  the  religion  of  Jehovah,  how- 
ever, did  not  fall  at  the  same  time  as  the  Israelitish 
state  is  the  merit  of  the  prophets  who  had  separated 
Jehovah  from  the  people  of  Israel  long  before,  and 
had  recognized  him  as  the  God  of  the  moral  world- 
order  who  reigns  as  the  eternal  spirit  beyond  all  the 
changing  fates  of  nations.  Again,  during  this  period 
of  exile,  a  period  of  misery,  the  prophets  kept  alight 
the  sparks  of  faith  and  hope.  At  this  time,  we  meet 
two  powerful  figures,  differing  fundamentally  in  the 
manner  of  their  thought  and  action,  but  both  of  them 
of  greatest  influence  in  the  development  which  fol- 
lowed. Perhaps  they  might  be  called  the  exemplars 
or  fathers  of  two  tendencies  which  run  parallel  in 
the  Jewish  religion  from  that  time  on,  which  strug- 
gle with  one  another  and  finally  end,  the  one  in 
Talmudic  Judaism,  and  the  other  in  Christianity.  I 
mean  Ezekiel  and  the  second,  or  Babylonian  Isaiah, 
as  we  are  wont  to  call  the  one  or  more  unknown 
authors  of  the  prophecies  in  Isaiah,  chapters  xl-lxvi. 

231 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

Ezekiel  is  the  classic  type  of  theocratic  priest; 
with  a  cool  heart,  he  looks  upon  the  suffering  of  his 
people  as  the  righteous,  divine  punishment  for  the 
guilt  heaped  up  by  them  during  their  entire  past. 
Their  misfortune  served  him  as  a  means  of  awaken- 
ing the  feeling  of  guilt,  which  he  then  intensified 
to  such  a  degree  of  abject  humility  that  all  human 
striving  for  happiness,  all  desire  for  temporal  power 
and  national  independence  should  be  broken  and 
choked,  in  order  that  the  new  structure  of  the 
priestly  state  of  God  might  be  erected  upon  the 
ruins  of  their  national  state-existence.  His  ideal  is 
a  community  of  pious  men  under  the  rulership  of 
the  priest,  the  central  point  is  the  temple ;  their 
greatest  care  is  the  legally  ordered  divine  service, 
and  the  one  task  of  life  is  the  sanctification  of  all 
their  members  by  strict  observance  of  ceremonial 
regulations  and  rigid  avoidance  of  all  sullying  con- 
tact with  the  heathen.  At  the  beginning  of  the  exile, 
Ezekiel  had  designed  this  program,  and  one  hun- 
dred years  later,  through  Ezra's  proclamation  of  the 
priestly  law,  it  was  actually  carried  out  in  the  Jew- 
ish community  which  returned  to  Palestine. 

How  different  the  spirit  we  meet  in  those  prophe- 
cies of  that  great  unknown  "  Deutero-Isaiah,"  writ- 
ten toward  the  close  of  the  period  of  exile.  He 
did  not  seek  to  break  and  rule  his  people,  but  to 
console  and  lift  them  up;  he  did  not  seek  to  make 
his  people  ritually  exclusive  and  narrow  their  lives, 
but,  rather,  in  the  widest  missionary  work  for  true 

232 


Post-Exilic  Judaism 

religion  among  all  the  peoples  of  the  world,  he  held 
up  for  his  people  the  ideal  of  its  historical  mission 
and  hope.  His  first  purpose  is  to  arouse  and  to 
strengthen  in  his  deeply-bowed  people  a  faith  in  its 
own  future,  a  trust  in  the  loyalty  of  its  God,  but 
above  and  far  beyond  that  stretches  his  prophetic 
vision ;  for  he  knows — the  history  of  the  peoples  of 
the  world  is  the  proof  for  him — that  Jehovah  is  not 
only  the  God  of  Israel  but  the  one  Lord  of  all  the 
world,  the  Creator  of  heaven  and  of  earth,  the  con- 
troller of  the  fate  of  all  peoples ;  he  knows  the 
heathen  gods  are  nothing,  images  made  by  folly  and 
by  human  hands.  This  one  and  only  God,  however, 
has  chosen  the  little  people  of  Israel,  not  that  they 
should  remain  his  one  possession,  but  that,  as  his 
servant,  instrument  and  herald,  they  may  proclaim 
the  true  God  to  the  peoples,  that  they  may  become 
the  mediating  nation  in  the  divine  education  of 
humanity. 

Deutero-Isaiah  also  gives  up  the  thought  of  tem- 
poral rulership,  but  not  in  order  to  set  up  an  exclu- 
sively Jewish  theocracy  in  its  place.  Here  Israel's 
vocation  is  to  come  in  its  stead,  Israel's  religious 
mission — the  ideal  described  by  Deutero-Isaiah  in 
the  wonderful  words :  "  Behold  my  servant  whom 
I  uphold ;  mine  elect,  in  whom  my  soul  delighteth : 
I  have  put  my  spirit  upon  him ;  he  shall  bring  forth 
judgment  to  the  Gentiles.  He  shall  not  cry,  nor 
lift  up  nor  cause  his  voice  to  be  heard  in  the  street. 
A  bruised  reed  shall  he  not  break,  and  the  smoking 

233 


Religion  and   Historic  Faiths 

flax  shall  he  not  quench :  he  shall  bring  forth  judg- 
ment in  truth.  He  shall  not  fail  nor  be  discouraged, 
till  he  have  set  judgment  in  the  earth ;  and  the  isles 
shall  wait  for  his  law."  (xhi,  i,  seq.)  This  sheds 
a  new  light  upon  the  heavy  sufferings  which  were 
Israel's  fate.  Ezekiel's  crude  criminal-law  theory- 
is  not  a  key  to  the  adequate  solution  of  this  problem ; 
but  in  the  eyes  of  a  religious  philosopher  of  his- 
tory— and  such  name  may  well  be  given  to  our 
prophet — the  suffering  of  the  servant  of  God  ap- 
pears as  the  instrument  by  which  he  is  enabled  to 
attain  his  highest  object,  the  salvation  and  redemp- 
tion of  men.  In  whatsoever  manner  the  words  of  the 
fifty-third  chapter  of  Isaiah  may  be  interpreted,  this 
much  is  certainly  clear,  that  therein  the  deep  thought 
which  has  ever  stood  the  test  finds  expression,  that 
the  innocent  suffering  of  the  righteous  is  a  sacrifice 
for  the  best  welfare  of  all,  a  purchase  price  of  the 
salvation  of  the  world. 

In  the  generations  which  followed  the  prophets, 
their  great  expectations  were  not  realized  by  events 
as  they  occurred.  True,  Cyrus,  the  Persian  King 
whom  Isaiah  greeted  as  the  annointed  of  Jehovah 
(Messiah),  did  give  the  Jews  permission  to  return 
from  their  exile  after  his  conquest  of  Babylon, 
536  B.C. ;  and  the  greater  portion  of  the  Jews  did 
actually  return  to  their  home,  but  the  conditions  in 
and  about  Jerusalem,  for  the  newly  settled  colony 
were  very  miserable.  A  political  crisis,  which 
shook   the    foundations    of   the   Persian   kingdom 

234 


Post-Exilic  Judaism 

shortly  afterward  in  the  reign  of  Darius,  gave  the 
opportunity  for  kindhng  anew  the  old  temporal 
political  messianic  hopes  and  the  flames  were  fed 
by  Haggai  and  Zechariah,  the  prophets ;  heedless  of 
all  the  experiences  of  the  past,  again  they  gave  them- 
selves up  to  the  bold  expectation  of  God's  impend- 
ing judgment  upon  the  heathen  and  the  universal 
rulership  of  the  Jews:  they  prepared  the  golden 
crown  for  the  Davidic  prince,  Zerubabel,  the  Persian 
governor.  The  Persian  realm,  however,  survived 
the  crisis  and  the  Jews  had  to  postpone  their  mes- 
sianic hopes  to  some  uncertain  future  day.  The 
temple  which  had  been  begun  was  completed,  but 
the  religious  inspiration  was  paralyzed  by  this 
new  disenchantment.  Actual  conditions  were  now 
looked  in  the  face;  peace  was  made  with  the  neigh- 
bors and  alliances  sought  particularly  through 
marriages,  with  those  of  their  comrades  who  had 
remained  in  Samaria.  The  Jewish  colony  which  had 
remained  in  Babylon — for  whom  the  strict  exclu- 
sion of  their  heathen  environment  was  the  problem 
of  existence — regarded  the  action  of  their  brethren 
as  fraught  with  danger  for  the  religion  of  Jehovah. 
They  wished  for  the  realization  of  that  plan  which 
Ezekiel  and  others  of  like  spirit  had  matured  ;  among 
them  lived  the  desire  for  the  achievement  of  the 
ideal  of  a  Jewish  theocracy  on  the  soil  of  the  sacred 
land  of  the  fathers. 

To  this  end,  Ezra,  the  priest  and  scribe,  arranged 
all  of  those  sketches  and  studies  into  a  new  "  Mosaic 

235 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

law  book  "  and  gained  permission  of  Artaxerxes, 
the  Persian  King,  to  introduce  it  officially  at  Jeru- 
salem. Accompanied  by  a  large  caravan  of  Jewish 
exiles  from  Babylon,  he  arrived  at  Jerusalem  458 
B.C.  Soon  thereafter,  he  began  the  purging  of  the 
people  of  God  of  all  foreign  elements  and  his  exclu- 
sion of  the  heretical  Samaritans  was  so  rigorous  that 
he  did  not  even  hesitate  at  the  dissolution  of  the 
existing  mixed  marriages.  In  order  to  protect  his 
work  against  the  forcible  entry  of  the  neighbors 
whom  he  so  ruthlessly  insulted,  he  tried  to  rebuild 
the  walls  of  Jerusalem;  but  this  attempt  failed  be- 
cause the  governor  of  Samaria  had  induced  the  Per- 
sian king  to  forbid  it.  That  was  a  heavy  blow  for 
the  authority  of  the  priest  Ezra;  his  hopes  for  the 
introduction  of  the  new  priestly  law  seemed  to  be 
blighted  for  years.  Finally  help  did  come  to  him 
again  from  the  Persian  court  where  the  Jewish  cup- 
bearer, Nehemiah,  had  used  his  position  in  order  to 
obtain  from  the  king  his  own  commission  as  gov- 
ernor of  Jerusalem  and  the  permission  to  build  its 
walls.  By  his  wisdom  and  the  power  of  his  per- 
sonality, he  was  able  to  win  the  people  over  for 
himself  and  Ezra.  After  the  reconstruction  of  the 
walls  had  been  finished,  he  called  a  general  gather- 
ing of  the  people  and  they  called  upon  Ezra  to  read 
his  law  book.  The  impression  was  so  powerful 
that  the  whole  people,  with  the  exception  of  a  few 
single  priests  whose  opposition  was  swept  away  by 
the  enthusiasm  of  the  mass,  at  once  followed  the 

236 


Post-Exilic  Judaism 

example  of  Nehemiah  the  Governor,  binding  them- 
selves by  their  signatures  to  obey  the  priestly  law 
of  Ezra.  This  solemn  deed,  445  b.c.^  was  the  be- 
ginning of  the  Jewish  priest-state.  As  in  the  case 
of  the  later  copy,  the  Roman  papacy,  this  was  the 
result  of  an  alliance  of  the  priesthood  with  the  royal 
power. 

In  its  original  form  the  priestly  law  book  has  not 
survived,  but  the  contents  have.  Later  periods 
added  to  it  older  laws  and  writings  of  historical  or 
legendary  content,  forming  in  its  entirety  the  five 
books  of  Moses  (Pentateuch)  which  makes  up  the 
beginning  of  the  Old  Testament  canon.  This  work, 
which  does  not  contain  a  single  line  by  Moses  him- 
self, is  an  artificially  wrought  collection  of  writings 
from  about  five  centuries  and  reflects  the  various 
planes  of  the  development  of  the  religion  of  Israel 
and  Judah  in  the  period  between  Solomon  and  the 
last  of  the  Persian  kings.  The  priestly  law  book  is 
differentiated  from  Deuteronomy,  which  had  been 
promulgated  under  Josiah  in  621  b.c.^  by  the  ab- 
sence of  civil  and  ethical  regulations  and  the  exclu- 
sive attention  to  the  arrangement  of  the  priestly 
hierarchy  and  their  ceremonial  functions,  as  well  as 
the  ordering  of  the  observances  by  which  Jewish 
life  became  sanctified,  that  is,  by  which  it  should 
become  separated  from  other  people.  It  may,  per- 
haps, be  said  that  the  priestly  law  of  Ezra  is  the 
epitome  of  the  religion  of  the  average  man  among 
the  Jews  in  the  exile.     Their  strong  feeling  of  guilt 

237 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

expressed  itself  through  the  mass  of  penitential  sac- 
rifices and  new  ceremonies,  such  as  the  Day  of 
Atonement,  upon  which  the  sins  of  the  people 
through  the  whole  year  are  put  on  the  back  of  the 
scape-goat  and  considered  done  for  when  the  scape- 
goat has  been  driven  off  into  the  wilderness.  This 
crude  rite  revived  the  animistic  notion  of  sin  and 
guilt  as  evil,  material  in  its  nature  and  therefore 
removable  by  sensuous  means ;  all  of  which  acquires 
the  new  sanction  under  the  guise  of  ancient  revela- 
tion. 

The  same  holds  true  of  the  complicated  laws  for 
purification,  particularly  those  relating  to  clean  and 
unclean  animals ;  in  them  the  "  taboo "  of  the 
nature-religion  is  raised  to  the  level  of  a  most  im- 
portant matter  of  conscience  and  becomes  a  com- 
mand of  the  holy  God  of  Israel.  Every  one  can  see 
how  far  this  priestly  god,  who  bothers  about  such 
miserable  stuff,  falls  below  the  ethical  idea  of  God 
enunciated  by  the  great  prophets.  This  decline  into 
a  semi-heathen  ritual  religion,  glorified  only  by  the 
halo  of  a  divine  revelation  to  Moses,  can  be  ex- 
plained only  by  the  condition  of  Jewish  worship 
during  the  exile ;  the  Jews  felt  the  need  of  emphasiz- 
ing and  preserving  their  separateness  as  against 
their  heathen  environment,  and,  lacking  a  system  of 
worship  employed  such  external  rites  as  abstinence 
from  the  eating  of  pork,  strictest  observance  of  the 
Sabbath,  circumcision,  and  the  like.  Thereby,  these 
things  which  had  been  naive  popular  customs  be- 

235 


Post-Exilic  Judaism 

fore  and  which  had  not  been  matters  of  deep  con- 
cern, now  assumed  the  value  of  works  and  sacred 
duties  pecuharly  pleasing  to  God,  the  performance 
of  which  represented  membership  in  the  Jewish 
church.  Thus,  at  the  cost  of  making  it  mechanical 
and,  in  half-heathenish  fashion,  material,  the  pro- 
phetic Jehovah  religion  was  preserved. 

However,  this  was  only  one  side  of  the  post- 
exilic  Jewish  religion.  Within  the  hard  shell  of 
external  legality,  the  better  spirit  of  the  ideal  re- 
ligion of  the  prophets  did  live  on  and  produced 
new  and  valuable  fruit.  At  the  same  time  that  the 
sensuous  sacrificial  services  which  were  so  little  to 
the  taste  of  the  prophets  were  being  carried  on  with 
ever-increasing  pomp  at  the  temple,  there  arose  the 
spiritual  service  of  God  without  sacrifice,  through 
scriptural  edification  in  the  synagogue.  Where 
formerly  the  prophetic  belief  in  God  had  been  the 
possession  of  a  few  individuals,  now  it  could  be 
acquired  by  all  the  members  of  the  Jewish  congre- 
gation as  their  personal  conviction  and  spiritual 
attitude.  The  most  beautiful  fruits  of  this  inter- 
nalization and  application  of  religion  to  the  experi- 
ences of  man's  daily  life  were  the  Psalms  and  the 
wisdom  books  (Proverbs,  Ecclesiastes,  Job).  Their 
ideal  of  piety  is  not  the  ritualistic  saintliness  of 
the  priestly  code,  but  a  clean  heart  and  noble  deed 
in  the  fear  of  and  the  trust  in  God.  They  alone 
who  have  this  are  true  servants  of  God  and  as  such 
they  know  themselves  to  be  separated  by  a  deep 

239 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

abyss  from  the  indifferent  and  the  godless  who, 
though  they  are  Jews  by  birth  and  in  external  prac- 
tices, are  really  on  a  level  with  the  heathen.  Once 
having  made  this  difference  between  true  and  merely 
external  seeming  attachment  to  the  congregation  of 
God,  wherein  the  personal  and  moral  value  of  the 
individual  was  the  standard  of  measure,  the  religious 
importance  of  national  boundaries  was  lost ;  it  could 
not  be  overlooked  that  outside  of  Judaism  also 
there  were  pious  and  good  men.  It  was  in  this  sense 
that  Malachi,  the  last  of  the  prophets,  said  that  the 
name  of  God  is  great  everywhere  among  the  peo- 
ples in  the  East  and  the  West,  and  in  every  place 
pure  offerings  are  sacrificed  to  him,  which  means 
that  among  the  heathen  too  there  were  true  servants 
of  God.  Yea,  the  author  of  the  Book  of  Job  has 
even  made  a  non-Jewish  man  the  patient  Job,  the 
representative  of  a  purer  belief  in  God  as  against 
Jewish  prejudices. 

With  this  personal  deepening  of  the  religious 
consciousness,  there  arose  new  problems,  disheart- 
ening enigmas  and  cruel  doubts.  So  long  as 
religion  was  thought  of  mainly  as  applied  to  the 
people  as  a  whole  and  each  one  felt  himself  a  partici- 
pant in  its  fate  through  the  feeling  of  solidarity,  the 
fact  of  experience  that  the  pious  man  was  often  the 
victim  of  misfortune,  and  the  godless  man  enjoyed 
good  fortune,  was  not  food  for  much  thought.  But 
now  that  the  pious  individual  felt  himself  as  the 
bearer  of  an  unmediated  personal  relation  to  God, 

240 


Post-Exilic  Judaism 

now  that  ethical  self-judgment  had  deepened  and 
clarified,  the  serious  question  arose:  How  can  the 
misfortune  of  the  pious  be  reconciled  with  the  ruler- 
ship  of  a  God  who  rewards  and  punishes  right- 
eously? This  question  was  the  more  difficult 
because  the  Judaism  of  that  day  had  no  such  hope  as 
that  of  reconciliation  in  the  world  to  come,  for  that 
thought  was  then  either  entirely  strange  or  was  it- 
self a  mere  premonition  of  a  dawning  problem. 

The  more  worthy  of  admiration,  therefore,  is  the 
courage  with  which  the  author  of  the  Book  of  Job 
struggled  with  this  dark  riddle.  He  has  the  friends 
of  Job  take  the  usual  Jewish  belief  in  retribution 
and  make  complaint  against  the  patient  man  that 
his  miseries  must  be  the  punishment  for  some  secret 
sins.  Against  this.  Job  defends  himself,  for  his 
conscience  is  free  from  heavy  guilt.  He  calls  God 
himself  to  witness  and  trusts  that  the  true  God  will 
once  again  save  the  honor  of  a  man  sorely  misrepre- 
sented and  enter  the  lists  for  him  who  has  been 
patient  in  his  suffering  and  firm  in  his  faith  through 
it  all.  And  the  poet  does  actually  have  God  himself 
appear  upon  the  scene  and  declare  against  the  sus- 
picions of  his  friends — suspicions  which  were  the 
consequence  of  their  belief  in  retribution — that  the 
pious  and  patient  Job  is  right.  So  this  belief,  in  so 
far  as  it  makes  the  world's  judgment  of  a  man  de- 
pendent upon  his  external  circumstances,  is  rejected 
as  irreconcilable  with  the  purer  knowledge  of  God 

himself;  the  pious  consciousness  rises  to  the  inner 

241 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

certainty  of  its  community  with  God  which,  inde- 
pendent of  the  chance  of  external  fate,  cannot  even 
be  shaken  by  misfortune.  This  view  of  the  Hebrew 
poet  who  wrote  the  didactic  poem  called  Job  har- 
monizes completely  with  that  of  the  probably  con- 
temporaneous Greek  thinker,  Plato;  the  latter  also 
presents  the  unconditional  value  of  the  ethically 
good  in  his  picture  of  the  righteous  suffering  mis- 
representation and  persecution,  yet  inwardly  happy 
and  certain  that  the  righteous  can  never  be  for- 
saken of  God.  The  same  thought  is  expressed  in 
some  of  the  Psalms;  a  particularly  beautiful  exam- 
ple is  the  seventy-third  Psalm  whose  author,  fleeing 
from  gloomy  fate,  finds  refuge  in  God : 

"Nevertheless  I  am  continually  with  thee: 
Thou  hast  holden  me  by  my  right  hand. 
Thou  shalt  guide  me  with  thy  counsel, 
And  afterward  receive  me  to  glory. 
Whom  have  I  in  heaven  but  thee? 

And  there  is  none  upon  earth  that  I  desire  beside  thee. 
My  flesh  and  my  heart  faileth: 
But  God  is  the  strength  of  my  heart  and  my  portion  forever." 

Wherever  such  an  attitude  shows  itself,  we  may 
well  call  it  Christianity  before  Christ.  Average 
Judaism,  however,  remained  on  the  standpoint  of 
the  utilitarian  belief  in  retribution,  and  the  conflict 
between  this  faith  and  the  facts  of  experience  led 
many  a  one  into  that  pessimistic,  skeptical  mood 
which  the  "  preacher  "  w^ith  his  Hellenic  training 
confessed  when  he  said,  "  all  is  vanity." 

242 


Post-Exilic  Judaism 

From  the  third  century  on,  Greek  enlightenment 
made  its  entry  among  the  upper  classes  of  Judea, 
as  it  had  in  all  of  Asia  Minor.  For  many  the  ten- 
dency to  strange  culture  produced  an  indifference  to 
the  faith  and  customs  of  the  fathers.  In  this  inclina- 
tion to  things  Greek,  the  thoroughly  worldly  priest- 
nobles  of  Jerusalem  went  to  such  an  extreme  that 
they  offered  to  help  the  Syrian  King,  Antiochus 
Epiphanes,  in  his  effort  at  complete  Hellenisation 
of  the  Jewish  people.  However,  the  violence  with 
which  this  attempt  was  made  awakened  the  reac- 
tion of  the  national  and  religious  spirit  of  the  peo- 
ple. When  the  combination  of  the  Maccabean 
heroes  with  the  pious  peasants  succeeded  in  defeat- 
ing the  Syrian  army  and  throwing  off  the  govern- 
ment of  the  strangers,  the  Jewish  religion  was  saved 
from  being  caught  in  the  threatening  snare  of  the 
Greek  spirit.  Then  happened  what  happens  every- 
where and  at  all  times  under  such  circumstances: 
the  victorious  religious  inspiration  ends  in  a  tre- 
mendous ecclesiastical  reaction  and  what  had  begim 
in  the  spirit  is  completed  in  the  flesh — ritualism, 
hierarchism,  dogmatism,  etc.  As  a  further  protec- 
tion against  the  incursion  of  heathenism,  the  Assi- 
daeans,  the  party  of  the  pious  which  soon  became  the 
Pharisees,  the  party  of  the  "  separates,"  laid  most 
stress  on  a  strict  fulfillment  of  the  law  in  all  its 
detail  and  externals.  But  the  written  law  was  not 
enough  for  them :  a  further  hedge  of  school  ordi- 
nances was  built  up.  making  the  realm  of  things 

243 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

permitted  ever  narrower  and  tightening  the  net 
of  observances  around  daily  life.  No  longer  was 
stress  laid  upon  the  pious  attitude  of  the  Psalms 
and  the  life  wisdom  of  the  Proverbs  but  upon  legal 
correctness  according  to  the  prescriptions  of  the 
Scribes  and  the  Pharisees.  In  the  school  of  these 
virtuosos  of  religion,  that  tendency  noticeable  as 
early  as  the  priestly  law  of  Ezra,  which  gave  cere- 
monials far  greater  importance  than  morals,  was 
carried  to  such  an  extreme  that  the  law  became  an 
oppressive  yoke  and  the  fulfillment  of  all  its  de- 
mands became  an  impossible  task  for  the  great  mass 
of  the  working  people.  Hence  these  exemplary 
pious  men  of  the  school  looked  down  arrogantly 
upon  the  "  people  of  the  soil,"  condemning  them  as 
godless  because  they  did  not  understand  aught  of  the 
casuistry  of  the  school  regulations  and  because  the 
needs  of  daily  life  made  it  impossible  for  them  to 
avoid  transgressions  and  impurities.  Hence  the 
law  became  a  dividing  barrier ;  not  only  did  it  divide 
the  Jew  from  the  heathen,  but  it  divided  the  Jews 
among  themselves  into  those  who  were  righteous  in 
the  legal  sense  and  the  profane  mass.  The  ethical 
living  spirit  of  the  religion  of  the  prophets  became 
a  death-dealing  letter  by  this  Pharisaical  distortion. 

But  however  much  the  life  of  the  Jews  might  be 
enchained  and  cut  off  from  the  rest  of  the  world  by 
this  legal  discipline  of  the  Scribes,  they  could  not 
prevent  the  inpouring  of  a  mass  of  Eastern  and 

244 


Post-Exilic  Judaism 

Western  elements  into  the  thinking  of  the  Jews; 
thus  there  was  brought  about  a  mixture  of  Jewish, 
Oriental,  and  Greek  thoughts  which  prepared  the 
foundation   for   a  new   religious   structure   of   the 
future.     From  Babylon  and  Persia  in  the  East  came 
the  speculations  concerning  divine  mediators,  con- 
cerning the  realm  of  the  good  and  the  bad  spirits, 
concerning   the    resurrection,    last    judgment,    and 
places  of  retribution  in  the  world  beyond.     Divine 
attributes  such  as  Wisdom,  Spirit  and  Word,  were 
transformed   into   independent  personal   mediators 
between  God  and  the  world  after  the  manner  of  the 
Persian  Amschaspans  or  archangels.     The  old  idea 
of  the  "  messengers  of  God,"  angels,  was  expanded 
into  a  host  of  spirits  whose  leaders  have  certain 
specified  duties  in  the  government  of  the  world; 
peoples  and  individuals  have  their  protecting  angels 
and  the   phenomena   of  nature   are  controlled  by 
angels,  an  imitation  of  the  heathen  nature-gods.    As 
in  the  Persian  religion  where  the  host  of  good  spirits 
is  opposed  to  the  host  of  bad  spirits,  so  Judaism 
now  acquired  the  demons  which  had  formerly  been 
meaningless  ghosts  in  the  popular  belief,  and  they 
took  on  the  religious  meaning  of  fallen  angels  mak- 
ing up  an  anti-divine  realm  under  their  over-lord, 
Satan.    Satan  himself,  who  in  the  Book  of  Job  had 
been  regarded  as  one  in  God's  train  and  played  the 
part  of  the  divine  state-prosecutor,  the  complainant 
against  man,  now  became  the  opponent  of  God  and 
the  prince  of  the  mundane  realms  oppressing  the 

245 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

divine  realm  of  the  Jews.  The  appearance  of  sin 
and  of  evil  in  God's  good  creation  was  traced  back 
to  temptation  by  Satan,  and  his  demons  were  looked 
upon  as  the  originators  of  all  physical  and  spiritual 
diseases  (possession).  The  fear  of  these  inimical 
spirit-powers  weighed  like  a  mountain  upon  the 
souls  of  all  the  men  of  that  time,  upon  the  Jew  no 
less  than  upon  the  heathen.  But  as  without  doubt 
the  Jews  took  over  from  the  Persians  this  idea  of  a 
struggle  between  the  divine  and  the  Satanic  rule, 
so  they  hoped,  as  did  the  Persians,  that  the  divine 
rule  would  eventually  be  victorious,  that  the  people 
of  God  would  be  saved  and  that  there  would  be  a 
universal  judgment  and  a  resurrection  of  the  dead. 
These  pictures  of  the  future  are  the  themes  of  the 
Apocalyptic  literature  which  became  of  supreme 
importance  for  the  Jewish  religion  in  the  last  cen- 
tury before  and  the  first  century  after  Jesus.  The 
Book  of  Daniel,  written  in  the  time  of  the  Macca- 
bees, 165  B.C.,  marks  the  beginning.  It  contains  a 
religious  philosophy  of  history  dividing  the  world- 
period  into  four  parts  in  imitation  of  the  Persian ; 
its  underlying  thought  is  that  after  the  impending 
downfall  of  the  last  heathen  world-empire,  the 
Grecian-Macedonian,  the  eternal  empire  of  the 
saints,  namely  the  Jews,  would  begin.  The  four 
heathen  world-empires  had  been  typified  by  animal 
figures  and  he  typifies  the  coming  Jewish  divine 
empire  by  the  figure  of  a  "  Son  of  Man  "  swaying 
toward  God  on  a  cloud  of  heaven;  probably  he 

246 


Post-Exilic  Judaism 

thinks  of  a  divine  Messiah  such  as  is  also  to  be 
found  in  the  prophecies  of  tlie  Sibyls  and  of  the 
Book  of  Enoch.  The  old  prophetic  hope  of  a  mes- 
sianic period  of  salvation  for  the  people  of  Israel 
thus  gets  a  nev^  direction;  it  is  no  longer  expected 
in  the  natural  historical  course  of  events  but  the 
government  of  God  is  to  come  from  heaven  by  a 
sudden  miraculous  catastrophe  which  will  put  an 
end  to  all  present  mundane  conditions.  That  re- 
mained the  ruling  opinion  of  Judaism  and  was  then 
taken  over  by  earliest  Christianity. 

Concerning  the  person  of  the  expected  Messiah, 
the  views  always  varied,  so  that  at  one  time  he  is  a 
supernatural  being  who  shall  appear  from  heaven 
(Sibyls,  Enoch,  Ezra),  again,  he  is  a  human  king 
of  the  house  of  David  (Solomon,  Psalms),  and  at 
another  time,  he  is  entirely  absent  and  God  alone 
is  to  rule  in  the  coming  aeon  (Ascension  of 
Moses).  The  one  thing  that  is  not  changed  is  the 
catastrophic,  miraculous  character  of  the  coming 
of  God's  realm.  The  character  of  his  kingdom  will 
correspond  to  its  supernatural  origin,  for  though  it 
will  be  realized  on  earth,  the  pious  of  bygone  days 
will  rise  from  the  dead  in  order  to  partake  of  its 
happiness,  as  the  godless  will  rise  to  eternal  tor- 
ment. The  hope  of  resurrection,  expressed  for  tlie 
first  time  in  the  Book  of  Daniel,  was  probably  the 
result  of  Persian  influence,  and  spread  in  close 
connection  with  the  whole  belief  in  the  world-judg- 
ment and  world-renewal.    In  the  later  Apocalypses, 

247 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

Enoch,  Ezra,  Bariich,  there  was  added  the  idea  of 
places  of  retribution  in  the  world  beyond  for  indi- 
vidual souls :  Paradise  for  the  pious  and  Gehenna  or 
Hell  for  the  godless.  The  idea  of  immortality  and 
of  a  life  of  bliss  or  misery  for  souls  after  death 
had  been  alien  to  the  old  Israelitish  faith,  but  in 
conjunction  with  the  belief  in  resurrection,  it  had 
long  existed  in  the  Persian  and  Egyptian  religions, 
in  the  Greek  Mysteries,  and  among  the  Orphic  and 
new  Pythagorean  societies.  It  is  probable  that 
from  them  single  features  of  the  gay  picture  of 
the  world  beyond,  painted  in  the  Jewish  Apocalyp- 
ses, had  been  taken  over. 

For  beside  the  Oriental  gnosticism,  it  was  Greek 
religious  philosophy  which  exercised  a  deep  influ- 
ence upon  the  religious  thinking  of  the  Jews,  espe- 
cially in  Alexandria,  during  the  last  ante-Christian 
centuries.  The  book  entitled  "  The  Wisdom  of  Sol- 
omon "  is  already  a  product  of  the  mixture  of  Jew- 
ish belief  and  Greek  (Stoic  and  Platonic)  philosophy ; 
but  the  ripest  fruit  is  preserved  for  us  in  the  writings 
of  the  Jewish  philosopher  and  theologian,  Philo  of 
Alexandria,  20  B.C.-54  a.d.  By  means  of  a  bold 
allegorical  method  of  interpreting  the  sacred  writ- 
ings of  his  people,  reading  into  them  the  thoughts 
of  Plato  and  the  Stoics,  he  sought  to  harmonize  the 
Jewish  faith  with  the  Greek  trend  of  thought  of  his 
time.  Philo's  view  of  the  world  also  was  dualistic, 
but  it  was  not  the  ruling  opposition  of  the  Jewish 
Apocalypses  which  set  the  present  world  over  against 

248 


Post-Exilic  Judaism 

the  future  world,  but  rather  the  Hellenistic  opposi- 
tion which  placed  the  sensual-visible  over  against 
the  supersensual-ideal  world.     According  to  Philo, 
God  is  pure  spirit,  sublime  beyond  all  the  limitations 
of  finiteness,  the  opposite  of  the  material  world,  and 
therefore  he  cannot  work  upon  it  without  mediation ; 
yet  God  is  ever-active  power  and  the  perfect  power 
from  whom  all  good  gifts,  and  only  good,  come  im- 
mediately.   For  him,  evils  are  merely  the  recognized 
activities    of    subordinate    spirits.     The    mediation 
between   God   and   the   world   is   accomplished  by 
bodyless  powers  or  ideas  or  angels;  at  their  head 
stands  the  Logos  which  is  both  the  world  ordering 
reason  as  well  as  the  personified  revelatory  word. 
He  is  called  God's  "  first-born  Son  and  Image,"  a 
"second  God,"  mediator  of  creation  and  all  his- 
torical revelation,  high  priest  and  attorney  (Para- 
clete) for  men,  their  teacher,  physician,  helmsman, 
guide  out   of   the  strange   land   of   earth   into  the 
heavenly  home.     For  the  human  soul,  as  Philo  con- 
forming to  Plato  teaches,  has  fallen  from  its  upper 
world  of  ideas  and  been  caught  in  the  prison  of  a 
mundane  body ;  its  task,  therefore,  is  to  rise  above 
the  world  of  the  senses  and  free  itself  so  as  to  go 
to  the  world  of  ideas.     Its  own  power,  however, 
cannot  possibly  do  this,  but  it  can  only  be  accom- 
plished by  the  divine  aid  of  the  mediator  Logos 
(Here  you  have  the  theological  transformation  of 
the  Platonic  thought  of  the  saving  power  of  the 
divine-human  "Eros.")     It  is  the  Logos  who,  in 

249 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

his  merciful  sympathy,  descends  into  the  souls  of 
men  and  lifts  them  out  of  the  stormy  sea  of  the 
perishable  world  into  community  with  the  divine, 
consecrating  them  as  temples  of  God.  The  Pla- 
tonic way  to  salvation,  the  striving  after  wisdom 
(philosophy),  acquires,  through  Philo,  a  decidedly 
religious  tinge:  it  is  faith  which  surrenders  with 
humility  and  joins  the  train  of  the  Logos  up- 
ward; he  unites  us  with  God;  he  is  the  solace  of 
life,  the  abundance  of  hope,  the  only  undeniable 
good,  the  heir  of  bliss.  And  with  faith  belongs,  as 
the  "  twin-sister  of  piety,"  love.  But  faith  reaches 
its  highest  point  in  that  vision  which  in  the  moments 
of  ecstatic  inspiration  enjoys  here  below  and  in  ad- 
vance the  bliss  of  the  world  beyond. 

These  thoughts  were  not  confined  to  Philo  alone 
at  his  time;  many  of  the  Jews  who  came  in  contact 
with  Greek  culture  shared  them  with  him.  Soci- 
eties were  formed  for  the  common  practice  of  this 
pious  wisdom,  for  example  the  Therapeutae  in 
lower  Eg^pt  and  the  Essenes  in  Palestine.  That 
was  a  religious  brotherhood  which  lived  a  life  of 
labor  and  ascetic  self-discipline  in  fraternal  seclu- 
sion,— a  late  blossoming  of  those  old  puritans,  the 
Rechabites,  of  whom  you  will  remember  that  I 
spoke  in  the  last  lecture.  But  they  had  been  modi- 
fied by  the  influences  of  the  new  Pythagorean  and 
similar  religious-social  fraternities  of  the  Greek 
world.  The  Essenes  had  the  same  regard  for  the 
laws  of  Moses  and  the  strict  care  for  ritual  purity 

250 


Post-Exilic  Judaism 

in  common  with  the  other  Jews;  they  were  differ- 
entiated from  them,  however,  by  the  rejection  of 
bloody  sacrifices  in  the  place  of  which  they  put  their 
daily  baths  and  their  common  sacramental  meal,  but 
most  especially  by  celibacy  and  community  of  pos- 
sessions. They  lived  together  in  fraternity-houses 
under  a  hierarchical  organization  and  strict  disci- 
pline; during  the  week  they  busied  themselves  with 
the  cultivation  of  the  soil  or  simple  handicrafts, 
while  on  the  Sabbath  they  gathered  together  for  the 
common  edification,  using  the  sacred  writings  as  in- 
terpreted by  the  best-informed  among  them.  The 
instruction  was  intended  for  the  education  of  the 
members  of  the  order  in  piety,  purity,  temperance, 
self-control,  mercy  and  benevolence  toward  the 
poor  and  the  sick.  They  gave  freely  out  of  the 
mass  of  their  common  store  even  to  those  who  were 
not  members  of  the  order;  besides  which  they  were 
active  as  physicians,  soothsayers,  pastors,  and 
tutors  wherever  their  counsel  and  their  help  was 
needed.  What  the  cynical  popular  philosophers 
were  to  the  Greek-Roman  world  and  the  Buddhist 
monks  were  in  India  and  eastern  Asia,  that  the 
Essenes  were,  approximately,  in  Palestine.  We 
may  not  doubt  but  that  their  influence  stretched  far 
beyond  the  limits  of  the  fraternity  and,  despite  all 
Pharisaic  sanctity  dependent  upon  works,  was  active 
in  keeping  alive  that  inward  piety  of  the  Psalms 
among  the  "  quiet  ones  of  the  land."  This  was  the 
soil  out  of  which  Christianity  grew. 

251 


XIV 

CHRISTIANITY 

The  last  lecture  led  us  to  the  threshold  of  Chris- 
tianity. Inasmuch  as  we  have  but  one  more  hour 
at  our  disposal,  it  will  not  be  possible  for  me  to 
present  the  origin  and  development  of  Christianity. 
In  fact,  I  could  only  repeat  what  I  said  last  winter 
in  this  room  in  my  lectures  on  Christian  Origins. 
In  the  meantime,  those  lectures  have  appeared  in 
print  and  I  refer  you  to  them,  confining  myself  to- 
day to  a  sketch  of  the  faith  of  the  Christian  com- 
munity in  the  New  Testament  period. 

While  doing  that,  however,  we  will  guard  care- 
fully against  committing  the  error  so  widespread 
to-day  of  reading  into  the  biblical  documents  some- 
thing they  do  not  contain  and  of  putting  aside 
everything  which  they  do  contain  that  is  not  en- 
tirely agreeable  to  our  modern  manner  of  thinking. 
It  is  in  such  fashion  that  the  well-known  Jesus 
romances  originate,  shooting  up  like  mushrooms 
from  the  ground ;  we  may  well  grant  those  poets  the 
privilege  of  doing  such  work,  but  they  ought  not 
to  lay  claim  to  the  credit  of  telling  actual  history. 
Just  that  which  to  the  modern  consciousness  is  odd, 

252 


Christianity 

which  in  fact  seems  to  offend  it,  just  that  usually 
reveals  that  which  is  historically  most  charactens- 
tic-the  thing  upon  which  the  thorough-going  suc- 
cess of  the  Christian  faith  at  its  time  rested.  Our 
first  task  is  to  grasp  and  to  understand  this  char- 
acteristic in  purely  objective  fashion  Not  unti 
then  can  the  further  question  be  asked:  What  ot 
permanent  importance  is  contained  for  us  in  this 
historically  conditioned  manner  of  thinking.  ^ 

But  it  is  in  no  wise  proper  for  the  historian  of 
religion  so  to  arrange  the  historical  matter  that  it 
conforms  to  the  subjective  standard  of  measure  set 
up  by  himself  or  by  contemporaneous  taste ;  nor  may 
he  distort  it.     What  was  Christianity  as  it  is  pre- 
sented to  us  in  the  New  Testament?     It  was  the 
belief  in  redemption  through  Christ;  that  statement 
contains  the  other  statement  that  a  "  Christianity  of 
Christ"  never  existed,  for  Christ  could  not  have 
believed  in  his  own  salvation  by  himself;  that  is 
simply    an    inner    contradiction.     Altogether,    the 
Christian   faith  existed   for   the  first  time   in  the 
Christian  community,  wherewith  the  question  what 
contribution  the  historical  Jesus  made  thereto_  re- 
mains a  matter  by  itself,  which  I  cannot  enter  into 
to-day;  my  task  to-day  is  only  a  presentation  of  the 
original  faith  of  the  Christian  Church  and  I  sup- 
pose that  I  may  count  upon  a  general  agreement 
when  I  say  that  from  the  beginning  Christianity 
was  a  religion  of  salvation.     But  there  had  been 
such  religions  before  it,  and  one  might  even  say 

253 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

that  about  the  time  of  the  change  of  era  almost 
every  rehgion  was,  in  one  way  or  another,  about  to 
take  on  the  nature  of  a  religion  of  salvation.  There- 
fore the  question  is  this :  What  was  it  that  consti- 
tuted the  peculiar  characteristic  of  the  Christian 
religion  of  salvation?  Its  belief  in  salvation  was 
the  richest  and  the  deepest,  for  it  comprised  three 
fundamental  kinds :  belief  in  future  salvation,  in 
past  salvation,  and  in  present  salvation.  Each  of 
these  forms  was  represented  in  some  one  of  the 
religions  or  philosophies  of  that  time,  but  Chris- 
tianity,— and  therein  consisted  its  distinguishing 
advantage, — gathered  all  three  together  into  a 
higher  unity  and  thus  occupied  a  position  higher 
than  all  the  others.  It  was  the  reservoir,  that  sea 
into  which  all  rivers  emptied  and  in  which  they 
flowed  together. 

First  then:  that  Christianity  is  a  religion  of  sal- 
vation in  the  sense  of  the  hope  of  future  salvation 
and  that  salvation  not  only  and  not  in  the  first  place 
of  individual  beings,  but  of  human  society  as  such, 
the  message  of  a  future  salvation,  and  that,  too,  to 
be  hoped  for  in  the  immediate  future,  salvation 
from  the  present  miserable  condition  of  the  world, — 
the  message  of  the  dawn  of  a  new  world,  of  the 
coming  of  the  kingdom  of  God  in  which  universal 
peace,  happiness  and  righteousness  shall  rule, — that 
was  the  great  message  that  went  forth  from  Pales- 
tine.    And  it  caused  a  powerful  echo,  for  it  came 

254 


Christianity 

at  the  right  time.  The  rule  of  the  Romans  had 
destroyed  the  glory  and  throttled  the  freedom  of 
the  ancient  peoples;  the  long  civil  wars  had  caused 
universal  uncertainty  and  lawlessness,  a  brutalization 
and  degeneration  of  social  conditions  had  come  to 
pass,  and  naturally  everywhere  the  misery  weighed 
heaviest  on  the  lowest  class  of  the  people,  upon  the 
weary  and  the  heavy-laden,  upon  the  poor  whom  the 
gospels  compare  to  a  scattered,  maltreated,  and 
leaderless  flock.  Hence,  throughout  all  the  East 
and  the  West,  the  longing  for  a  new  world  of  peace 
and  of  righteousness. 

In  an  inscription  from  the  year  9  B.C.,  recently 
discovered  at  Priene,  there  is  a  hymn  to  the  Em- 
peror Augustus  which  furnishes  a  capital  picture  of 
the  mood  of  that  day.     It  reads : 

"This  day.  the  birthday  of  Augustus,  has  given  a  new 
appearance  to  all  the  world  which  had  been  a  prey  to  de- 
struction had  there  not  emanated  from  him  now  born  a 
universal  fortune  for  all  men,  the  beginning  of  a  new  life. 
Now  is  the  day  past  when  one  must  grieve  that  he  has  been 
born.  Providence  has  sent  this  man  to  us  and  to  coming 
generations  as  a  savior,  he  will  make  an  end  to  all  struggle 
and  mould  things  gloriously.  In  his  appearance  the  hopes 
of  the  fathers  are  fulfilled.  He  has  surpassed  all  former 
benefactors  of  humanity.  It  is  impossible  that  a  greater 
one  can  come.  The  birthday  of  the  god  has  led  the  world 
up  to  the  messages  of  joy.  For  the  world,  the  birthday  of 
the  god  has  led  up  the  messages  of  joy  (evangels)  attached 
to  him.  From  the  day  of  his  birth  a  new  reckoning  of  time 
must  begin." 

Such  were  the  hopes  which  the  masses  of  the 
people  reposed  in  the  deified  Caesars  of  Rome,  and 

255 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

how  they  were  disappointed!  Though  matters 
Went  fairly  well  under  Augustus,  the  disappoint- 
ment became  more  and  more  bitter  under  his 
successors.  All  too  soon  it  became  evident  that 
these  CjEsars  themselves  were  the  incarnation  of 
greed  and  violence  under  which  the  maltreated  peo- 
ples groaned.  Then  there  came  a  message  from 
the  midst  of  the  people,  not  political  in  its  import, 
but  greatly  treasured  in  religious  regard  for  the 
sake  of  its  old  revelations  and  messianic  hopes — 
from  Palestine  came  the  wonderful  news  that  a 
saviour  was  expected,  not  an  earthly  but  a  heavenly 
king,  who  shortly  before  had  dwelt  upon  the  earth 
as  a  prophet,  a  man  of  the  people  and  a  friend  of 
the  poor  and  oppressed,  one  who  took  pity  on  the 
leaderless  flock  and  promised  to  the  poor,  the  weep- 
ing, and  the  starving  the  bliss  of  the  kingdom  of 
God,  his  satisfaction  and  consolation — a  friend  of 
men,  who  had  taken  up  the  least  of  them  and  the 
rejected  as  their  humane  teacher  and  healing  phy- 
sician ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  he  had  hurled  re- 
proving words  at  the  satiated  rich,  the  arrogantly 
just  and  the  proud  superiors,  for  which  reason,  they 
had  rejected  and  cursed  him  and,  in  the  end,  nailed 
him  upon  the  cross;  but  then  did  God  himself 
miraculously  resurrect  the  crucified  one  and,  ele- 
vating him  to  the  heavenly  throne,  place  him  on  His 
right  hand,  whence  he  is  about  to  return  as  the  vic- 
torious savior  of  his  own. 

What  the  Jews  had  long  hoped  of  their  Messiah, 
256 


Christianity 

the  Persians  of  their  savior,  Saoshyant,  the  Egyp- 
tians, the  Greeks  and  the  Romans  of  Serapis, 
^sculapius,  and  Hercules,  their  deities  of  salva- 
tion, or,  finally,  even  of  the  deified  Caesars — all  of 
this  was  here  surpassed  by  the  announcement  of  the 
divine  messianic  king  of  the  Christian,  he  who  had 
been  a  man  and  had  tasted  human  sorrow,  yea 
had  drained  the  cup  to  the  very  lees,  but  even  now 
had  become  more  than  man,  a  divine  being,  equipped 
with  omnipotence,  and  established  as  the  savior  and 
judge  of  men.  The  double  nature  of  this  announce- 
ment from  Palestine,  that  the  savior  who  would  re- 
deem the  pious  would,  at  the  same  time,  be  the 
judge  of  the  godless,  was  of  greatest  importance 
for  the  world  of  that  time.  That  is  what  gave 
to  this  announcement  its  forceful,  rousing,  moral 
power.  Through  it  the  feeling  of  guilt  which 
has  been  called  into  being  by  the  very  need  of  the 
time  was  intensified  to  the  extreme;  for  the  certain, 
the  proud  and  the  indifferent,  the  thought  of  judg- 
ment was  a  motive  to  self-examination,  reform, 
purification,  and  betterment  of  life.  Even  in  later 
centuries,  after  the  Church  had  long  given  up  the 
hope  of  a  mundane  messianic  kingdom  and  an  early 
visible  coming  of  their  Lord,  the  thought  of  the 
great  day  of  judgment  of  the  Lord  was  powerful 
enough  to  make  them  quake  inwardly. 

"Dies  irae,  dies  ilia 
Solvet  saecla  in  favilla, 
Teste  David  et  Sibylla!" 
257 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

Now  let  us  ask  the  question :  What  importance 
can  this  earHest  Christian  behef  in  salvation,  a  hope 
of  an  earthly  divine  kingdom  of  righteousness,  of 
peace  and  of  joy,  have  for  us  to-day?  It  is  self- 
evident  that  the  supernatural  and  the  catastrophic 
parts  of  it  fall  away  for  us  because  history  itself 
has  shown  that  to  be  an  error  of  the  period.  Never- 
theless, there  does  remain  for  us  the  early  Christian 
belief  in  the  coming  of  the  heavenly  kingdom  on 
earth ;  it  remains  as  a  belief  in  the  right  and  victori- 
ous realization  of  the  ethical-social  ideals  of  human 
society.  With  this  difference :  we  no  longer  ex- 
pect its  realization  by  a  miracle  descending  from 
heaven,  but  we  find  in  it  the  ethical  task  given  to 
us  by  God,  the  task  of  honestly  cooperating  in  per- 
son for  the  realization  of  that  ideal  and  we  hope 
that  this  labor  in  the  cause  of  the  divine  pur- 
pose of  the  world  must  be  of  service  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  world.  That  is  the  import  of  faith 
in  future  salvation.  The  same  is  true  of  the  belief 
in  a  future  judgment.  Although  we  no  longer 
believe  that  Christ  will  descend  from  heaven  to 
earth  and  devote  some  day  to  formal  judgment, 
nevertheless,  the  truth  does  remain  that  divine 
righteousness  ever  and  again,  in  the  grave  crises 
and  in  the  winnowing  judgments  of  national  life, 
has  revealed  itself  and  will  reveal  itself  in  the 
future.  To  our  thinking,  the  single  miraculous 
catastrophe  divides  into  the  ever-recurring  catas- 
trophes of  the  life  of  the  peoples,  returning  accord- 

258 


Christianity 

Ing  to  the  eternal  laws  of  the  order  of  the  world, 
catastrophes  in  which  that  which  is  impure  is  de- 
stroyed by  the  test  of  fire  and  that  alone  persists 
which  is  genuine,  true,  and  good.  "  The  history  of 
the  world  is  the  judgment  of  the  world!" 

This  future  salvation  of  society  was  no  more  im- 
portant to  the  men  living  at  the  beginning  of  our 
era  than  the  hope  of  a  blessed  existence  in  the  world 
beyond  for  the  individual  soul.  This  hope  was 
based  upon  legends  relating  certain  facts  of  salva- 
tion in  the  past,  in  which  the  guarantee  of  future 
bliss  was  given  to  those  pious  souls  who  had  been 
united  to  their  god  of  salvation.  Of  course  you 
remember  the  legends  of  Osiris-Isis,  Istar-Tam- 
muz,  Demeter-Kore,  to  which  must  be  added  Attis- 
Cybele,  Adonis-Aphrodite,  and  others.  As  we 
have  repeatedly  seen,  these  legends  all  revolve  about 
the  simple  thought  of  the  death  and  resurrection  of 
nature  and  the  gods  governing  it.  In  the  myth, 
the  annual  experience  of  the  Autumn  and  the  Spring 
became  a  poem  telling  of  the  one-time  fate  of  the 
nature-god  who  died  a  violent  death  and  returned 
again  to  life.  And  this  myth  of  the  past  fate  of 
the  god  was  then  moved  into  a  timeless  present  by 
a  corresponding  custom,  the  festal  rite,  by  which 
the  death  and  the  resurrection  of  the  god  was  annu- 
ally celebrated.  By  the  ceremonies  of  this  celebra- 
tion, it  was  believed  that  a  mysterious  communit)^ 
with  the  god  had  been  achieved  so  that  the  wor- 

259 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

shipper  became  a  participant  in  the  death-conquer- 
ing hfe  and  thus  became  certain  of  a  bHssful  Hfe 
to  come.  We  have  many  reports  of  such  festal 
customs  in  Egypt,  Syria  and  Phrygia  made  by 
Plutarch,  Apuleius,  Lucian,  Firmicus  Maternus, 
and  others.  Lucian  of  Antioch,  the  well-known 
author,  describes  the  celebration  of  the  Syrian 
Spring-festival  about  as  follows:  When  the  red 
anemones  blossomed  in  the  Spring  and  the  waters 
of  Orontes  were  dyed  red  by  the  ochre  earth  of  the 
mountain  from  which  it  flows,  then  it  was  said  that 
the  god  Adonis,  "  the  lord,"  had  been  torn  by  the 
wild  boar  and  killed ;  and  his  death  was  celebrated 
by  wild  songs  of  lamentation  sung  by  the  women 
and  the  solemn  burial  of  his  corpse  in  the  shape  of 
a  wooden  image.  But  on  the  second  or,  accord- 
ing to  other  customs,  on  the  third  or  fourth  day 
after  his  death  suddenly  the  message  sounded  on 
the  air :  the  lord  lives,  Adonis  is  risen  again !  Then 
he  (his  image)  emerged  in  the  body  from  the  grave 
in  which  he  had  been  laid  and  rose  in  the  air  (by 
means  of  some  mechanism — a  ceremony  which,  in 
the  Greek  Church  and,  as  I  have  learned,  in  some 
places  also  in  the  Roman  Cathloic  Church  is  cus- 
tomary to  this  day  in  similar  fashion  on  Easter 
night)  ;  then  according  to  the  report  of  the  Phry- 
gian Attis  celebration  made  by  Firmicus  Maternus, 
the  priest  would  anoint  the  mouth  of  the  lamenting 
with  oil  and  speak  the  consolatory  words :  "  Be 
solaced,  ye  pious,  since  the  god  is  saved,  salvation 

260 


Christianity 

from  our  distress  will  be  our  lot" — just  as  the 
Christians  sing  to  this  day,  "  Jesus  lives  and  I  live 
with  Him." 

Such  was  the  Easter  festival  as  it  was  annually 
celebrated  in  Antioch,  the  Syrian  capital,  from  of 
old.     To  this  same  Antioch,  soon  after  the  begin- 
nings  of  the  messianic  community   of  Jerusalem, 
men  from  Cyprus  and  Cyrene  had  come  and  had 
begun  to  declare  the  message  of  the  crucified  and 
resurrected  Christ,  not  only  to  the  Jews  but  also 
to  the  heathen ;  and  the  heathen  listened  to  them  and 
some  of  them  became  converts   to   the  new  lord, 
Christ.     Thus  it  was  that  the  first  mixed  community 
of  Jews   and  heathen  was   established  there,   and 
there,  for  the  first  time,  the  new  name  "  Christians  " 
was  given  to  them  as  is  reported  in  the  Acts  of  the 
Apostles,  chapter  xi,  verses  20-26.     So  the  com- 
munity there  was  looked  upon  as  something  new, 
something   that   was   neither   Jewish   nor   heathen. 
What  might  it  have  been  by  which  they  recognized 
this?     Naturally,  it  must  have  been  their  customs, 
which  must  have  been  other  than  those  of  the  mes- 
sianic community  composed  formerly  only  of  Jews. 
But  from  where  may  these  new  customs  by  which 
this  community  was  recognized  as  a  new  commu- 
nity of  Christians  have  come?     As  religious  cus- 
toms are  never  created  out  of  nothing,  we  may  well 
accept  it  as  a  fact  that  the  heathen-Christians  of 
Antioch  preserved  the  old  customs  by  which  they 
had  previously  celebrated  the  death  and  resurrec- 

261 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

tion  of  Adonis,  their  lord,  and  now  transferred  them 
to  their  new  lord,  Jesus.  Thus  it  came  about  of 
itself  that  Christ  seemed  to  them  to  be  the  lord  who 
achieved  the  salvation  of  his  own  by  his  death  and 
his  resurrection  and  became  the  savior  of  the  world. 
And  now  the  Apostle  Paul  comes  into  this  new  com- 
munity, having  been  called  for  by  Barnabas  at  Tar- 
sus, his  native  city ;  he  soon  felt  at  home  there  and 
his  work  was  so  blessed  that  the  community  grew 
visibly.  Certainly  it  was  no  more  than  natural  that 
Paul,  for  his  part,  permitted  the  customs  and  ideas 
which  he  found  existing  in  the  heathen-Christian 
community  at  Antioch — otherwise,  how  could  his 
activity  have  been  blessed  ?  It  was  the  more  natural 
because  everything  which  he  found  harmonized 
exactly  with  the  manner  in  which  he  himself  had  ar- 
rived at  the  faith  in  Christ.  From  a  fanatical  perse- 
cutor of  the  messianic  community,  Paul  had  been 
converted  into  an  Apostle  of  Christ  by  the  experi- 
ence of  a  vision  in  which  he  had  seen  the  crucified 
Jesus  as  the  heavenly  Christ  and  son  of  God ;  there- 
fore his  death  had  not  been  that  of  a  criminal,  but  a 
death-sacrifice  in  which  God  had  given  his  son  for 
the  sake  of  our  sins,  so  that  we  might  be  saved 
from  the  present  wicked  world.  About  the  life  of 
Jesus,  the  prophet  of  earth,  Paul  knew  very  little, 
just  as  little  as  did  the  heathen-Christians  of  Anti- 
och ;  therefore  it  was  the  more  natural  that  he  agreed 
with  them  in  the  conviction  that  the  death  and  the 
resurrection  of  Christ,  the  son  of  God,  was  the  one 

262 


Christianity 

fact  of  redemption  and  the  content  of  the  new  re- 
ligion of  salvation. 

In  his  theolog3%  Paul  further  developed  and 
grounded  this  belief.  For  him,  Christ  is  no  longer 
the  prophet  and  the  struggling  hero  of  a  Jewish 
messianic  realm,  as  the  early  community  thought, 
but  for  him,  he  is  the  suffering  hero  of  a  mystical 
salvation  of  the  world,  his  death  is  a  guilt  offering 
for  the  reconciliation  of  God  and  the  forgiveness 
of  human  guilt,  his  resurrection  the  conquest  of  the 
powers  of  death  and  of  hell,  the  victorious  resur- 
rection of  the  divine  life,  the  beginning  of  a  new 
humanity  vivified  by  the  spirit  of  God.  In  the  well- 
known  passage,  I  Corinthians,  xv,  he  cries  triumph- 
antly "  Death  is  swallowed  up  in  victory,  O  death 
where  is  thy  sting?  O  grave  where  is  thy  victory? 
The  sting  of  death  is  sin ;  and  the  strength  of  sin  is 
the  law.  But  thanks  be  to  God,  which  giveth  us  the 
victory  through  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ!"  Thus 
the  gospel  of  Paul  became  the  preaching  of  the 
crucified  and  resurrected  mediator,  the  Lord  who 
is  the  spirit,  the  Lord  of  the  living  and  the  dead. 
This  victor  over  death  and  hell,  it  is  evident,  can  no 
longer  be  an  earthly  man,  the  "  Christ  after  tlie 
fiesh,"  for  he  was  buried  and  remained  in  the  grave, 
but  that  which  now  lives  is,  according  to  Paul, 
something  much  higher,  it  is  the  Lord,  the  spirit 
which  maketh  alive  and  maketh  free  God's  first- 
born Son,  the  man  from  heaven,  the  second  Adam 

from  whom  a  new  humanity  took  its  beginning;  in 

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Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

a  word,  it  is  the  ideal  man  in  whom  there  is  neither 
Jew  nor  Greek,  but  all  are  one,  in  whom  the  idea 
of  man  is  resurrected  to  life.  This  divine  man,  so 
Paul  teaches,  God  sent  down  to  earth,  had  him  take 
on  a  body  of  sinful  flesh,  so  that  he  should  suffer 
death  and,  by  his  guiltless  vicarious  suffering  and 
dying,  take  the  sting  from  death,  pay  its  tribute  to 
sin,  render  justice  to  the  law,  but  therewith  and  at 
the  same  time  do  away  with  all  of  these  evil  powers 
once  for  all,  break  their  yoke  and  loosen  their  fet- 
ters, overcome  death  for  all,  and  bring  life  and 
immortal  existence  for  all. 

The  Christian  message  of  salvation  by  means  of 
the  sacrificial  death  of  Christ,  the  Son  of  God,  was 
powerful  in  its  effect  upon  the  heathen  world.  The 
penitential  rites,  by  which  the  intensified  feeling  of 
guilt  of  the  period  sought  to  find  some  relief,  the 
ceremonies  of  the  mysteries  which  were  piously 
entered  into  as  the  death  and  resurrection  of  a  myth- 
ical god  in  order  to  hold  a  guarantee  of  one's  own 
salvation  and  beatitude — all  of  this  found  fulfill- 
ment here ;  nay  more,  it  was  far  surpassed.  It  was 
fulfilled,  for  here,  too,  was  a  superhuman,  a  heav- 
enly being  which  God  himself  had  made  into  a  sacri- 
fice in  order  to  purchase  therewith  the  salvation  of 
the  world.  This  being,  however,  had  not  suffered 
death  as  a  natural  fate,  as  in  the  case  of  the  mythical 
gods;  in  free  obedience,  and  out  of  love,  Christ, 
the  Son  of  God,  had  given  up  his  earthly  life  so  as 
to  save  the  world ;  it  was  the  ethical  deed  of  self- 

264 


Christianity 

sacrifice  on  the  part  of  a  divine  man  which  had 
saved  humanity  from  sin,  the  law,  death  and  the 
devil,  which  had  robbed  the  old  ritual  and  myth- 
ical services  of  sacrifice  and  atonement  of  their 
value  and  had  created  the  new  tie  of  the  community 
with  God  in  the  spirit  of  childship.  In  this  way,  it 
is  possible  to  comprehend  the  wonderful  and  all- 
subversive  effect  of  Paul's  preaching  of  the  cruci- 
fied and  resurrected  Lord,  Jesus;  without  that,  the 
victory  of  the  Christian  faith  over  the  heathen 
world  would  hardly  be  thinkable. 

It  is  a  different  matter,  however,  when  we  turn 
to  the  question:  What  meaning  has  this  faith  in  a 
past  salvation  through  the  sacrificial  death  of  Christ 
for  us  to-day?  Naturally,  there  is  much  to  be  said 
on  this  subject,  and  our  time  limits  to-day  force  me 
to  confine  myself  to  a  few  suggestions.  I  think  that 
what  was  said  before  concerning  the  belief  in  a 
future  salvation,  will  be  found  to  be  applicable  here : 
that  which  was  mythical  and  supernatural  in  the 
form  of  the  early  Christian  belief  naturally  drops 
away,  while  the  kernel  of  the  truth  cannot  but  per- 
sist. What  else  can  this  truth  be  than  the  eternal 
law  of  the  world-order,  tliat  through  death  is  the 
way  to  life,  that  the  "  old  Adam,"  the  sensual,  selfish 
human  being,  must  die  if  the  divine,  spiritual  self 
of  the  personality,  the  son  of  God  within  us,  is  to 
be  and  to  do.  The  other  truth,  also,  will  remain, 
that  as  in  all  previous  times,  the  salvation  of  human- 
ity and  acquisition  of  all  permanent  means  of  re- 

26s 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

demption,  rested  upon  the  moral  sacrifices  of  obedi- 
ence and  of  love,  made  by  the  individual  for  the 
good  of  all,  so  in  the  days  to  come  salvation  will 
require  the  same  foundation.  Here,  too,  for  our 
thinking,  the  one-time  miracle  of  the  myth,  the  sac- 
rificial death  of  a  unique  supernatural  Son  of  God, 
breaks  up  into  a  series  of  repeated  happenings; 
namely,  the  endless,  historical  series  of  all  the  sac- 
rifices of  men,  who  demonstrated  thereby  that  they 
were  true  children  of  God,  urged  by  the  spirit  of 
God,  thoughtless  of  themselves,  but  in  active  and 
suffering  love,  surrendered  themselves  for  the  sal- 
vation of  men,  for  the  good  cause  of  God  and  His 
kingdom.  Upon  these  sacrifices  of  obedience,  fidel- 
ity and  love  made  by  generation  after  generation, 
finally  rests  all  the  progress  of  humanity,  the  salva- 
tion of  man  from  the  fetters  of  the  crude  nature- 
powers,  the  acquisition  of  all  permanent  ideal  pos- 
sessions which  make  life  worth  the  living.  The 
history  of  the  world,  therefore,  is  not  only  the  judg- 
ment of  the  world,  but  it  is,  also,  the  salvation  of 
the  world.  That  is  the  truth  of  the  gospel  of  Paul, 
which  can  not  be  eliminated  from  Christianity  with- 
out fatally  mutilating  it.  For  this  Pauline  procla- 
mation of  a  past  salvation  has  demonstrated  itself 
historically  to  be  the  way  that  did  lead  beyond  the 
mere  hope  of  a  future  salvation  which  grew  more 
and  more  problematical  witli  each  year  of  the  delay 
in  its  fulfillment,  up  to  a  certainty  of  present  and 
inner  salvation. 


Christianity- 
How  can  a  salvation  which  is  regarded  as  a  thing 
completed  in  the  past,  become  an  efficient  experience 
of  the  present?     The  answer  to  this  question  had 
been  prepared  in  many  ways  and  Christianity  again 
had  but  to  enter  into  the  orchards  and  gather  the 
ripe  fruit.     The  rites  of  the  mysteries  served  to 
transport  the  votaries  into  a  present  and  a  permanent 
union  with  the  God  of  salvation.    The  bond  of  union 
was  partly  established  by  calling  the  name  of  the 
God  of  salvation,  in  which  name  all  of  his  power  to 
bless  was  mysteriously  hidden ;  again,  rites  of  puri- 
fication and  immersion  designed  to  bring  about  the 
actual  wiping-away  of  sin  and  guilt  and  all  things 
demonic  were  employed ;  finally,  they  ate  consecrated 
food  and  drank  consecrated  draughts  in  the  belief 
that  the  life  of  the  god  was  actually  present  in  the 
body  in  them,  so  that  in,  with  and  through  the  sen- 
suous matter,  the  votary  seemed  to  have  taken  on 
the  god's  body.     Hence,  those  who  had  been  conse- 
crated by  those  rites  spoke  of  themselves  as  "  reborn 
forever  "  (renatus  in  cctcrnum). 

It  would  have  been  marvellous  if  these  rites  had 
not  forced  their  entry  into  the  Christian  community. 
Certainly,  Paul  was  not  the  first  one  to  introduce 
them ;  without  doubt  he  found  that  they  were  being 
employed  by  the  community  of  Antioch.  There- 
upon he  brought  them  into  closest  relation  to  his 
doctrine  of  Christ  and  salvation  and  gave  them  a 
deep,  ethical-religious  meaning,  far  beyond  any 
ideas  which  had  been  attached  to  those  rites  by  tlie 

267 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

heathen.  Baptism  took  on  the  meaning  of  the  im- 
planting of  Christ's  death  and  resurrection  for  the 
purpose  of  participation  in  both:  the  former  man 
of  sin  is  buried  by  the  immersion  and  the  new  man 
rises  to  hfe  with  God  and  for  God,  a  Hfe  no  longer 
ruled  over  by  sin  and  death.  The  primitive  Chris- 
tian love-feast  took  on  the  mystical  meaning  of  the 
eating  and  drinking  of  the  body  and  blood  of  Christ, 
whereby  a  community  of  love  and  life  is  established 
between  the  head  and  the  members  and  between  one 
member  and  the  others.  By  these  sacramental 
means,  just  that  is  represented  and  performed  which 
belief  in  Christ's  name  in  itself  is,  namely,  a  being 
in  Christ,  a  state  of  being  filled  with  his  spirit  by 
which  the  believer  becomes  what  Jesus,  the  Son  of 
God,  was.  "  Ye  are  all  sons  of  God  through  the 
faith  in  Christ  Jesus."  The  connection  with  Christ 
is  so  close  that  Paul  can  say :  "  No  longer  do  I  live, 
but  Christ  lives  in  me."  "  If  one  be  in  Christ,  then 
is  he  a  new  creature,  the  old  is  departed,  behold  he 
is  become  new."  Above  all,  for  this  new  man,  there 
has  passed  away  the  world  of  the  law  with  its  lit- 
eral observance  of  the  ordinances,  the  threats  and 
the  curses  resting  upon  transgressors — all  of  that  is 
done  away  with;  it  does  not  hold  for  such  as  have 
become  new  men  in  Christ,  free  men  of  the  spirit. 
For  "  the  Lord  is  spirit  and  where  the  spirit  of  the 
Lord  is,  there  is  freedom."  Consequently,  the  spir- 
itual man  is  first  of  all  a  free  man,  who  has  within 

himself  the  source  of  true  knowledge  and  the  motive 

268 


Christianity 

power  of  good.  "  Love  is  the  fulfillment  of  the 
law  " ;  the  holy  spiritual  motive  takes  the  place  of 
external  force.  The  same  holds  of  knowledge: 
"  The  spiritual  man  judges  all  and  is  judged  by 
none,"  for  "  the  spirit,  which  is  given  to  us,  searches 
all,  even  the  deeps  of  God."  In  this  close  commu- 
nity of  spirit  with  God,  which  is  the  faith  accord- 
ing to  Paul,  all  unfreedom  ceases  and  heteronomy 
and  subordination  under  strange  ordinance  and 
authority  have  ended;  this  faith  is  not  a  blind  ac- 
ceptance, it  is  the  voluntary  surrender  of  the  heart 
to  the  experience  within  and  clear  recognition  of 
the  will  of  God,  who  seeks  our  salvation;  it  is  the 
truly  "  reasonable  service  of  God." 

Therefore,  John  can  also  say :  "  This  is  life  eter- 
nal that  they  should  know  Thee,  the  only  true  God 
and  him  whom  thou  didst  send,  Jesus  Christ."  The 
knowledge  of  God  after  its  revelation  in  Christ,  that 
is  eternal  life,  the  salvation  now  present.  Accord- 
ing to  John,  it  is  true,  Christ  is  not  identical  with 
the  man  Jesus,  but  something  far  more  comprehen- 
sive: the  eternal  word  of  God  or  the  Logos,  which 
had  been  with  God  from  the  beginning  and  had 
been  the  power  through  which  all  things  came  into 
being,  the  life  of  the  world  and  the  light  of  men, — 
which  had  revealed  itself  in  a  unique  and  miraculous 
manner  in  Jesus  but  did  not  confine  itself  to  his  mor- 
tal existence,  and  after  Jesus  reveals  itself  ever 
anew  in  that  spirit  which  leads  the  community  on  in 
truth.     For  this  reason,  the  belief  in  Jesus,  that 

269 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

eternal  Logos  and  Son  of  God,  means  present  pos- 
session of  eternal  life,  according  to  John.  The 
believers  "  have  even  now  gone  over  from  death  to 
life  and  taste  of  death  no  jnore  " ;  their  faith  is  the 
power  which  has  overcome  the  world.  That  does 
not  im.ply  that  the  world  is  devoid  of  value  and 
reality  for  the  Christians  as  it  is  for  the  Buddhists; 
but  rather,  the  world  is  the  object  of  a  positive 
moral  task,  the  material  which  is  to  be  shaped  by 
the  activity  of  a  patient  and  serving  love  into  the 
kingdom  of  God.  The  love,  which  Philo  had  called 
the  twin-sister  of  faith,  is,  according  to  Paul,  the 
active  energy  of  faith  and  the  most  precious  gift 
of  grace,  which  will  never  fail  though  prophecies, 
tongues  and  knowledge  shall  cease.  (I  Cor.  xiii,  8). 
And  John  condenses  the  entire  substance  of  the 
Christian  faith  in  that  deep  saying :  "  God  is  love, 
and  whoso  is  in  love,  is  in  God  and  God  in  him." 
If  it  is  faith  which  makes  man  the  master  of  all 
things  and  frees  him  from  those  things  which  other- 
wise enslave  him,  it  is  love  which  unites  him  to  the 
whole  and  makes  him  the  voluntary  servant  of  all. 
Thus  faith  and  love  are  the  actual  salvation  of  the 
present,  bridging  the  past  revelations  of  the  divine 
spirit  with  the  hoped-for  coming  fulfillment  and 
completion. 

The  mythical  ideas  of  past  and  present  miracles 
were  naturally  the  outer  form  of  the  belief  In  salva- 
tion, necessary  for  the  old  Church  as  they  are  for 
many  men  to  this  day;  but,  from  the  beginning, 

270 


Christianity 

they  were  merely  the  shell,  in  which  lay  hidden  the 
actual  experience  of  the  present  redeeming  power 
of  faith  and  love.  Though  we  of  to-day  can  no 
longer  hold  these  mythical  notions  to  be  literal 
truth,  we  may  well  recognize  them  as  symbols  and 
means  of  representation  of  the  permanent  truth  of 
the  Christian  idea  of  salvation.  Let  us  be  careful 
that  we  do  not  lose  the  ideal  content,  or  lessen  or 
weaken  it  by  an  all-too-hasty  throwing  aside  of  the 
symbolical  shell,  before  we  have  actually  grasped 
their  deep  meaning.  If,  from  the  beginning,  the 
Christian  community  went  beyond  the  earthly  life 
of  the  Jewish  prophet  Jesus,  and,  for  the  actual 
object  of  their  faith  took  the  heavenly  man,  the 
eternal  Son  of  God,  the  divine  Logos  which  is  the 
light  of  all  men — truly,  it  was  no  chance  inquisitive- 
ness  but  it  was  an  inner  necessity ;  it  was  the  invol- 
untary recognition  of  the  cardinal  truth  that  the 
redeeming  power  is  not  a  temporal  thing,  not  even 
the  most  excellent  man,  but  that  it  is  the  eternal 
divine  human  spirit  of  the  true  and  the  good.  That 
alone  can  become  an  immediate  inner  experience 
for  us ;  that  alone  can  produce  an  unconditioned  cer- 
tainty, free  from  all  temporal  and  finite  limitations ; 
that  alone  can  be  a  universally-valid  norm  and 
authority  for  all  men.  This  divine-human  spirit  is 
the  truth  that  frees  and  the  love  that  binds,  opening 
the  heart  to  it  with  a  faith  that  knows,  consecrating 
to  it  a  life  of  active  labor,  of  serving  love,  and  of 

waiting  with  patience  and  hope — that  is  the  actual 

271 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

salvation  of  the  present  for  which  all  the  figures  and 
stories  and  legends  and  poems  of  the  past  are  but 
means  of  visualization,  symbols  and  parables :  "  The 
finite  is  ever  an  image." 

The  Christian  belief  in  salvation  gathered  up  in 
itself  all  the  truths  contained  in  the  religions  and 
the  philosophies  of  its  time.  With  the  religions  of 
the  mysteries,  Christianity  shares  the  mystical  en- 
thusiasm, that  uplifted  and  intensified  feeling  of 
being-in-God  and  the  implied  hope  of  a  blissful 
beyond;  it  converted  the  mystical  means  of  salva- 
tion into  symbols  of  a  moral  rebirth  and  of  brotherly 
love.  With  the  philosophy  of  its  time,  Christianity 
shares  the  reasonable  worship  of  God  in  moral 
knowledge  and  practices.  Again,  it  shares  with 
Buddhism,  the  abnegation  of  self  and  the  world, 
the  quiet  peace  of  resignation;  and  also,  with  the 
religion  of  Zarathustra,  it  shares  a  courageous 
struggle  against  godlessness  of  every  nature  and  a 
joyous  hope  of  the  victory  of  God's  cause  in  the 
world.  With  Judaism,  Christianity  shares  belief 
in  the  one  sublime  and  holy  God,  the  judge  of  men 
and  of  nations,  and  in  the  coming  of  his  kingdom 
on  earth ;  but  with  Plato,  it  shares  also  belief  in  that 
God,  who  is  the  highest  good  and  the  unenvying 
source  of  all  that  is  true  and  good,  as  also  belief  in 
the  divine  mediator  Eros,  that  power  of  inspiration 
resident  in  us,  and  love  of  those  ideals  coming  from 
above.  With  the  Stoics,  finally,  Christianity  shares 
that  inner  freedom  from  the  world,  the  calmness  of 

272 


Christianity 

firm  character,  the  power  of  self -determining  will 
(autonomous)  and  the  liberality  of  the  humanitar- 
ian idea  which  reaches  out  over  all  nations  and  all 
classes;  but  it  gives  life  to  this  cold  and  proud  vir- 
tue of  the  Stoics  by  belief  that  the  world  is  God's, 
and  by  love  which  renders  the  service  of  brothers 
a  joy,  and  by  the  hope  that  all  struggle  and  all  suf- 
fering misery  of  the  time  will  one  day  be  resolved 
into  the  peace  of  eternity. 

Thus  it  is  that  Christianity  became  the  religion 
of  the  religions,  conquered  the  old  world  and  led  up 
to  the  new. 


273 


x\^ 


ISLAM 


IsLAM^  the  religion  of  Mohammed,  is  the  latest 
among  the  historical  religions,  a  late  after-impulse 
of  the  religion-forming  power  of  the  Semitic  race. 
Founded  by  the  prophet  Mohammed  under  Jewish 
and  Christian  influences  among  the  half-barbaric 
Arabic  people  in  the  seventh  century,  Islamism 
shares  the  monotheistic,  rigidly  theocratic  and 
legalistic  character  of  Judaism,  without  its  national 
limitation ;  with  Christianity,  it  shares  the  claim  and 
propagating  impulse  of  world-religion,  but  without 
the  wealth  of  religious  thought  and  motives  and 
without  the  mobility  and  the  capacity  for  develop- 
ment which  belongs  to  a  world-religion.  It  might  be 
maintained,  probably,  that  Islamism  is  the  Jewish 
idea  of  theocracy  carried  out  on  a  larger  scale  by  the 
youthful  national  vigor  of  the  Arabians,  well,  cal- 
culated to  discipline  raw  barbaric  peoples,  but  a 
brake  on  the  progress  of  free  human  civilization. 

The  religion  of  the  Arabs  before  Mohammed  was 
the  ancient  Semitic  heathenism,  which  had  pre- 
served itself  longest  in  its  ancient  form  among 
them.     The  separate  tribes  had  their  individual  gods 

274 


Islam 

which  differed  from  one  another  only  in  the  forms 
of  worship  in  use  at  the  local  sanctuaries.  Allah 
was  the  species-name  for  god,  and  even  before 
Mohammed,  he  was  placed  above  the  others  as  an 
independent  god,  the  highest  of  all;  the  oldest  of 
these  gods,  Allat  (Mistress),  Utza  and  Manat, 
were  subordinated  to  Allah,  as  his  daughters. 
Beside  these  and  several  other  nature-gods,  the 
Dschinns,  good  and  evil  spirits,  played  a  great 
role  in  the  popular  religion.  As  dwelling-places 
and  manifestations  of  the  presence  of  the  gods,  the 
cult  regarded  stones  preferably,  but  trees  and  wells 
served  also;  to  them  sanctuaries  were  attached,  at 
which  the  separate  tribes  met  once  a  year  for  an 
adoration  of  the  god  in  common.  The  Caaba,  the 
sanctuary  at  Mecca  stood  in  especially  high  regard ; 
it  was  a  four-cornered  house,  into  the  wall  of  which 
there  had  been  built  a  black  stone,  as  the  fetish  of 
the  god  who  was  native  to  those  parts  (Hobal  or 
Allah).  This  sanctuary  belonged  to  the  tribe  of 
the  Koreishites;  with  especial  solemnity,  they  cele- 
brated the  annual  holy  festival,  and  caravans  from 
all  of  Central  Arabia  came  thither.  With  this  cele- 
bration, a  lively  market  for  trade  was  combined,  and 
there  wares  and  thoughts,  as  well  as  the  latest  pro- 
ductions of  the  song-writers,  were  exchanged.  This 
worldly  activity  predominated  at  these  festivals; 
true,  the  ancient  rites  were  attended,  but  the  faith 
in  the  old  gods  was  beginning  to  disintegrate  in  the 
sixth  century.     So  much  the  more  could  the  mono- 

275 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

theistic  faith  of  the  Jews  and  Christians,  scattered 
here  and  there  among  the  colonies  or  living  in  some 
districts  of  Arabia  as  hermits,  wield  an  attractive 
influence  upon  the  more  earnest  spirits  among  them. 
Before  Mohammed's  day,  there  were  several  such 
men  among  the  Arabs  who  had  thrown  off  the  wor- 
ship of  heathen  idols,  believed  in  one  God  and  his 
world  judgment,  and  lived  serious  ascetic  lives; 
they  were  known  as  "  Hanifites,"  which  is  probably 
derived  from  the  Syriac  word  for  heretics  or  the 
Arabic  word  for  separatists.  The  greatest  number 
of  them  were  found  at  Mecca  and  Medina,  and 
though  they  took  no  steps  toward  the  formation  of 
a  congregation  or  the  dissemination  of  their  behefs 
by  propaganda,  nevertheless,  they  were  the  forerun- 
ners of  Islamism  and  paved  the  way  for  the  work  of 
Mohammed. 

Born  about  570  a.d.^  Mohammed  belonged  to  the 
ruling  tribe  of  the  Koreishites  at  Mecca.  Early 
orphaned,  he  grew  up  in  the  poorest  of  circum- 
stances, until  he  entered  the  service  of  Khadijah,  the 
widow  of  a  rich  merchant,  whom  he  married  when 
he  was  twenty-five  years  of  age  and  with  whom  he 
lived  a  happy  married  life  until  her  death.  Fre- 
quently his  mercantile  pursuits  led  him  to  Syria  and 
Palestine,  and  there  he  came  in  contact  with  Jews 
and  Christians.  But  the  first  stirrings  of  his  reli- 
gious awakenings  came  from  the  pious  Hanifites  of 
Mecca.     He  began  to  withdraw  into  solitude  and 

reflect  upon   the  folly  of   the  heathen,  who  lived 

276 


Islam 

along  certain  of  their  beliefs,  thoughtless  of  the 
judgment  of  God.  Thus,  he,  too,  became  a  Hanifite 
and  sought  salvation  for  his  soul  in  "  Islam,"  that 
means,  self-surrender  to  the  one  true  God.  The 
first  impulse  to  disseminate  this  faith  in  his  environ- 
ment came  from  a  vision,  which,  in  his  fortieth  year, 
he  experienced  during  a  night-watch  on  the  holy- 
mountain  near  Mecca.  An  angel,  bearing  a  scroll 
in  his  hand,  appeared  to  him  and  commanded : 
"  Read,  in  the  name  of  thy  Lord,  who,  out  of  a 
single  drop,  hath  created  men.  Read,  for  thy  Lord 
is  the  Almighty,  who  hath  taught  by  this  writing, 
what  man  hath  not  known.  Yea,  verily,  man  walk- 
eth  in  his  folly,  when  he  opines  that  he  is  sufficient 
unto  himself;  to  thy  Lord,  must  they  all  return." 
This  first  vision  roused  him  to  great  excitement ;  he 
believed  himself  possessed  by  a  Dschinn,  and  his 
restlessness  was  the  more  oppressive,  because  a  space 
of  time  elapsed  before  the  reappearance  of  the  vis- 
ion. Then  it  did  come  again  and  in  the  form  of 
a  positive  command :  "  Rise  and  Warn.  Glorify 
thy  Lord  and  wait  upon  him."  This  command 
came  repeatedly  and  finally  Mohammed  was  con- 
vinced that  he  was  called  by  God  to  be  the  prophet 
to  his  people.  That  this  conviction  was  an  earnest 
one,  and  rested,  just  as  much  as  with  the  prophets 
of  Israel,  upon  an  irresistible  pressure  of  conscience 
which  seemed  to  him  to  be  divine  revelation,  there 
can  be  no  doubt ;  and  the  fact  that  later  pronounce- 
ments of  the  prophet,  which  he  also  enunciated  as 

277 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

"  revelations."  were  undeniably  the  outcome  of  un- 
hampered reflection  and  the  prudent  weighing  of 
circumstances,  does  not  alter  matters  in  the  least. 

At  first  Mohammed  preached  in  the  narrow  circle 
of  his  relatives  and  his  friends.  He  did  not  seek 
to  found  a  new  religion,  but  rather  to  reintroduce 
Abraham's  ancient  belief  in  God,  as  it  was  written 
in  the  heavenly  book,  from  which  the  prophets  of 
the  Jews  and  the  Christians  had  ever  received  their 
revelations.  He  demanded  of  his  adherents  that 
they  submit  to  Allah,  as  the  highest  master  and 
righteous  judge,  before  whose  judgment-seat  they 
would  all  have  to  appear;  they  should  abandon 
their  heathen  blasphemy,  they  should  pray  regularly 
and  give  alms  without  hope  of  profit  or  reward. 
New  revelations  soon  impelled  him  to  appear 
publicly  before  his  fellow-citizens  and  condemn 
their  heathenism.  They  hearkened  not  to  him,  but 
derided  him  as  a  madman,  as  one  possessed. 
Derision  roused  his  sensibility,  the  temper  of  his 
preaching  became  more  acrid,  he  threatened  his 
countrymen  with  the  terrible  punishments  which 
God' meted  out  here  and  beyond.  The  bitterness 
against  him  was  heightened  by  this  method,  until 
it  resulted  in  deadly  hatred  and  serious  persecutions. 
This  served  but  to  confirm  the  prophet  in  the  con- 
viction that  his  calling  was  divine  and  the  impres- 
sion of  loyalty  to  conviction  in  the  face  of  dire  op- 
pression brought  enthusiastic  followers,  especially 
from  among  the  poor  and  the  enslaved.     However, 

278 


Islam 

at  Mecca,  where  the  mass  of  the  people  were  bound 
to  the  rehgion  of  former  days  by  the  material  bene- 
fits accruing  to  a  much-visited  place  of  pilgrimage, 
the  prophet's  cause  seemed  hopeless.  At  this  time, 
a  host  of  friends  from  Medina,  making  a  festal  pil- 
grimage to  Mecca,  arrived  and  were  so  enthused  by 
the  imposing  impression  of  his  personality,  that 
they  solemnly  assured  him  of  their  loyalty  in  life  and 
death  and  induced  him  to  move  over  to  Medina. 
This  was  the  decisive  turning-point  for  his  cause; 
from  this  flight  (Hegira)  in  the  year  622,  dates  the 
beginning  of  Islamism  as  a  religious  community. 

In  his  new  surroundings  amid  greater  successes, 
the  activity  of  Mohammed  took  new  directions.  In 
Mecca,  he  had  been  the  prophet  of  a  religious  faith, 
without  religious  motives,  but  in  Medina,  he  soon 
became  the  founder  and  ruler  of  a  religious-political 
commonalty,  which  formed  the  basis  of  the  the- 
ocracy of  Islamism.  His  great  energy  and  pru- 
dence soon  subjected  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  city 
to  his  social  arrangement  and  ritual  commands. 
Praying  became  a  fonn  of  military  exercise;  the 
mosque  became  the  great  exercise-ground  and  the 
ritual  was  the  drill-system  of  Islam,  which  thus 
implanted  solidarity  and  a  strict  discipline  in  its 
armies.  Alms  became  a  regular  tax  and  formed 
the  basis  of  the  financeering  of  the  new  theocracy. 
At  the  same  time  with  the  growth  of  this  closer 
alliance  of  tliie  faithful,  there  grew  up  the  exclusion 
of  those  not  of  the  faith,  particularly  against  the 

279 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

Jews,  whom  Mohammed  had  regarded  before  as  his 
friends,  but  whom,  after  his  assumption  of  the  role 
of  political  organizer  of  the  Arabic  theocracy,  he 
treated  as  uncomfortable  rivals  of  his  idea  and 
enemies  of  his  autocratic  rule.  Mohammed's 
foundation  of  a  state  on  the  basis  of  a  common 
religious  impulse  as  a  substitute  for  the  old  heathen 
anarchy  of  the  Arabs,  was  the  greatest  deed  of  his 
life  and  most  decisive  for  the  future;  the  congrega- 
tion of  Medina  was  the  instrument,  their  heroic 
faith  was  the  power,  through  which  Islamism 
achieved  its  world-historical  successes.  It  is  his 
work  at  Medina  which  makes  up  the  greatest  part 
of  his  historical  importance,  and  here  the  prophet 
was  concealed  for  the  most  part  behind  the  states- 
man. As  such,  Mohammed  undeniably  performed 
a  great  work,  but,  naturally,  he  was  not  choice  in 
the  selection  of  his  means.  Many  a  deed  of  cruelty, 
revenge  and  deceit  may  have  to  be  judged  more 
mildly  from  the  standpoint  of  the  popular  morals 
of  the  Arabs;  but  in  the  character-picture  of  a 
prophet  and  founder  of  a  religion  (for  to  him  the 
title  is  more  applicable  than  to  any  one  else),  they 
will  and  must  remain  dark  spots. 

Not  only  did  the  fall  of  Mecca,  which  decided  the 
victory  of  Mohammed  over  the  Arabs,  serve  as  the 
ground-work  for  subsequent  Islamic  conquests,  but 
it  also  deeply  influenced  the  inner  configuration  of 
the  new  religion.  Of  this  victory,  too,  the  ancient 
saying  was  true :   Vicfa  victorcs  cepit.     Inasmuch 

280 


Islam 

as  Mohammed  embodied  the  heathen  rites  of  the 
Caaba  at  Mecca  and  the  celebration  of  the  pilgrim- 
festival  which  was  native  there  into  his  religion,  he 
made  a  concession  to  the  old  heathenism  of  the 
Arabs  which  crassly  contradicted  the  fundamental 
monotheistic  and  universalistic  idea  of  his  religion. 
Glossing  it  over  by  the  claim  that  Abraham  had 
founded  these  heathen  customs  was  a  crude  decep- 
tion, conscious  or  unconscious.  The  real  motive  of 
this  retrogression  to  fetishistic  superstition  lay  in 
a  prudent  regard  of  the  prejudices  and  advantages 
of  his  countrymen,  whose  city  was  thereby  elevated 
in  quite  different  fashion  from  before  into  the  cen- 
tral point  of  national  culture.  In  the  proportion 
that  Islamism  became  bound  to  the  Arabic  capital 
as  its  permanent  center,  its  claim  to  the  title  of  a 
general  "  world-religion  "  became  invalid ;  at  bot- 
tom, it  always  remained  an  enlarged  national- 
Arabic  theocracy  by  force  of  arms,  just  as  the 
Jewish-messianic  realm  was  to  become  a  national- 
Jewish  theocracy.  As  a  national  theocracy,  Islam- 
ism did  become  a  mighty  power  in  the  world's 
history,  but  its  influence  upon  the  religious  devel- 
opment of  mankind  was  rather  a  hindrance  than  a 
help.  From  the  beginning,  its  religious  content 
was  limited  and  impure;  and  its  "revelation"  and 
book-faith  was  a  hindrance  to  all  healthy  progress. 

In  the  beginning,  the  sayings  of  Mohammed  were 
preserved  by  word  of  mouth  only ;  toward  the  close 

281 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

of  the  first  generation  of  his  congregation,  they 
were  committed  to  writing.  In  order  to  harmonize 
the  different  readings  of  the  various  collections  of 
sayings,  Caliph  Othman  the  Third  ordered  Zaid, 
Mohammed's  secretary,  to  make  an  official  edition, 
which  resulted  in  the  sacred  book  of  Islamism,  the 
Koran.  Throughout,  the  style  is  rhymed  prose; 
the  sayings  of  the  older  period  are  laconic,  after 
the  fashion  of  oracular  sayings,  but  they  soon  be- 
come more  prolix,  full  of  artificial  rhetoric  and 
endless  repetitions — dry  and  wearisome  reading  for 
a  healthy  taste.  Naturally,  this  never  hindered  the 
faithful  of  Islam  from  regarding  the  book  as  ex- 
actly that  which  it  laid  claim  to  being,  namely,  the 
unmediated  word  of  God,  which  had  existed  from 
eternity  as  the  "  uncreated  word "  in  a  celestial 
original  and  had  been  revealed  to  Mohammed  by 
the  angel  Gabriel.  Alongside  the  Koran,  Islamism 
holds  a  second  rule  of  faith — tradition,  Sonna. 
This  contains  precise  ordinances  concerning  every 
manner  of  external  ceremonial  as  well  as  civic  and 
personal  life ;  all  of  these,  often  without  foundation, 
are  traced  back  to  utterances  of  Mohammed.  Be- 
sides, the  traditions  contain  a  mass  of  miraculous 
legends,  of  which  the  Koran  had  none,  since  Mo- 
hammed expressly  discountenanced  the  rage  for 
miracles  and  pointed  out  the  great  wonders  of  God 
in  nature. 

Islamic  teaching  rests  upon  five  pillars,  which 
come  from  Mohammed  himself:  (i).  Belief  in  the 

282 


Islam 

all-one    God,   Allah,    and    in    Mohammed   as    his 
prophet-  (2).  Prayers  five  times  a  day  m  set  form, 
with  the  face  turned  toward  Mecca;  (3)-  The  giv- 
ing of  alms,  later  regulated  as  a  poor-tax;   U)- 
Fasts,  later  limited  to  the  daylight  hours  of  the 
month  Ramadhan;   (5).  Pilgrimages  to  Mecca    a 
duty  devolving  on  every  believer  at  least  once  m  h.s 
life     The  greater  the  poverty  of  spiritual  content 
in  ihe  teaching,  the  more  minute  are  the  details  of 
the  ceremonial  prescribed,  down  to  the  most  minute 
The  fundamental  dogma  is  that  ^f  the  unity  o 
God ;  but  concerning  the  nature  of  God.  Mohammed 
made  no  deeper  reHections.     He  conceived  God  as 
the  supermundane,   almighty  ruler,   similar  to  an 
Oriental  despot ;  terrible  in  his  anger  and  then  again 
benevolent,  delaying  judgment  in  his  benevolence 
arbitrary  in  reward  and  punishment,  with  a  w  1 
irresistible  as  inconceivable,  demanding  blind  sub- 
mission of  men  and  even  then  his  grace  uncertain 
This  all-deciding  freedom  of  God's  despotic  will 
was  expressed,  though  without  logical  completeness, 
in  the  form  of  an  absolute  predestination.     Mo- 
hammed had  no  difficulty  in  contributing  even  im- 
moral   features,    such   as   revenge   and   deception 
which  naturally  belong  to  the  tj-pical  Oriental  despot 
to  his  idea  of  God.     This  gloomy  view  of  God 
corresponds  to  a  pessimistic  view  of    he  worM 
the  world  is  compared  to  a  dung-heap  full  of  decay- 
ing bones.  an<l  its  misery  is  so  great  th.t  only  the 
tortures  of  hell  exceed  it.     Just  as  horrible  as  the 

^3 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

hell,  so  joyous  is  the  description  of  the  heavenly- 
paradise,  whose  drinking-bouts  shall  compensate  the 
pious  for  the  prescribed  abstinence  from  the  enjoy- 
ment of  wine  during  life  on  earth. 

God,  it  is  said,  has  revealed  himself  through 
thousands  of  prophets  in  all  times;  most  prominent 
among  these  are  Adam,  Noah,  Abraham,  Moses, 
Jesus  and  Mohammed;  and  Mohammed  is  not  only 
the  last  but  the  greatest  of  them,  he  alone  being 
destined  for  all  men.  To  him,  God  has  revealed 
Himself  mainly  through  the  angel  Gabriel,  but 
partly  also,  in  direct  instructions  given  in  heaven,  to 
which  he  (Mohammed)  had  been  transported  bodily 
at  various  times.  Beyond  this,  Mohammed  made  no 
claim  to  supernatural  attributes,  not  even  that  of 
moral  perfection;  he  had  erred  and  sinned  and 
needed  forgiveness  like  other  men.  He  sought  to 
be  only  a  preacher,  a  monitor,  the  first  of  the  faithful 
(Moslem)  ;  his  mission  had  been  fulfilled  in  the  rev- 
elation of  the  sacred  book,  and  it  is  not  his  province 
to  be  a  permanent  mediator  between  God  and  men. 
An  old  tradition  has  him  say :  "  Praise  me  not,  as 
Jesus,  the  son  of  Marjam  was  praised."  The 
acknowledgment  of  Jesus  as  a  prophet  who  had 
gone  before,  did  not  hinder  Mohammed  in  any  way 
from  a  denial  of  Christianity,  which  he  pronounced 
as  a  falsification  of  the  true  teaching  of  Jesus.  The 
doctrine  that  Jesus  was  the  Son  of  God,  was  partic- 
ularly offensive  to  him ;  he  thought  that  that  was  a 
palpable  lie,  because  he  was  certain  that  God  had  no 

284 


Islam 

wife ;  he  rejected  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  which 
he  conceived  as  a  heavenly  family  consisting  of  a 
father,  mother  and  son  (probably  one  of  the  Ori- 
ental sects  through  their  gnostic  mythology  had 
given  him  that  notion,  just  as  the  six  principal 
prophets  are  reminiscent  of  the  Elkesaitic-clemen- 
tinian  gnosticism. 

To  the  conflict  over  the  regular  succession  to  the 
prophet,  the  origin  of  the  sect  of  Shiahs  is  to  be 
ascribed ;  from  the  end  of  the  seventh  century,  they 
were  dominant  in  Persia.     They  would  acknowl- 
edge only  Ali,  the  son-in-law  of  Mohammed,  the 
husband  of  his  daughter  Fatima,  and  their  descend- 
ants as  the  proper  "  Imam,  heads  of  the  congrega- 
tion."    This    schism,    at    first    merely    political    in 
nature,    soon    acquired     a    religious     significance 
through  the  doctrine  of  the  continuity  of  the  chain 
of  prophets.     Whereas  orthodox  Islam  looks  upon 
Mohammed  as  the  last  of  the  prophets,  the  Shiahs 
believed  that  the  divine  revelation  continued  through 
AH  and  his  family;  as  the  "  Wali "  (confidant)  of 
God,  they  set  Ali  even  above  Mohammed  and  the 
anniversary  of  the  death  of  All's  son,  Hosein,  who 
fell  at  Kerbela  in  680,  they  regarded  as  a  much 
more  important  celebration  than  even  the  great  feast 
at  Mecca.    One  extreme  branch  of  Shiahs  of  Persia 
maintained  that  Ali  and  the  successive  legitimate 
Imams    were    the    continuous    incarnation    of    the 
deity,  which  recalls  the  Thibetan  doctrine  of  Dalai- 

285 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

lama.  How  deeply  rooted  this  thought,  originally 
alien  to  Islamism,  grew  to  be  among  the  Persians, 
was  made  manifest  in  the  second  half  of  the  last 
century  by  the  rise  of  the  Babists,  a  sect  founded 
by  Mirza  Ali  Mohammed,  who  claimed  to  be  the 
highest  embodiment  of  that  same  divine  spirit 
which  had  appeared  before  in  Abraham,  Moses, 
Jesus  and  Mohammed. 

It  might  seem,  for  a  time,  that  freer  thought  was 
seeking  expression  in  Islam.  The  sect  of  the 
Mutazilites  raised  objections  to  the  orthodox  teach- 
ing of  the  eternity  and  infallibility  of  the  Koran, 
the  doctrine  of  predestination,  and  to  the  doctrine 
of  an  arbitrary  God,  in  contradiction  to  which  they 
laid  the  greatest  stress  on  the  righteousness  of  God. 
In  most  instances,  orthodoxy  found  it  most  com- 
fortable to  render  these  rationalists  harmless  by  the 
temporal  arm  of  the  Caliph ;  however,  in  the  strug- 
gle with  them,  there  developed  a  theology  which 
sought  to  employ  the  dialectics  learned  from  the 
heretics  in  defense  of  the  orthodox  doctrines,  Al- 
Ashari  (died  941),  its  most  illustrious  represen- 
tative, may  be  regarded  as  the  founder  of  the 
dogmatic  theology  of  Islamism.  In  the  question  of 
predestination,  for  example,  he  decided  entirely  in 
the  sense  of  the  Christian  Semipelagians :  it  is  the 
part  of  man  to  will,  but  it  belongs  to  God  to  fulfill. 
Again,  in  the  case  of  the  sinlessness  of  the  prophet : 
the  possibility  of  sinful  action  was  in  him,  but  the 
divine  watchfulness  united  with  his  own  merit  as 

286 


Islam 

the  prophet  had  never  permitted  the  realization. 
But  the  rationaHsts  were  not  defeated  by  the  fine- 
ness of  this  dialectic  play,  but  by  immutable  char- 
acter inherent  in  Islamism  from  the  beginning,  they 
were  overthrown.  The  great  mass  of  the  people 
recognized  their  Allah  and  the  Allah  of  Mohammed, 
not  in  the  God  of  the  Mutazilites  whose  nature  was 
righteousness,  but  in  the  God  of  the  orthodox,  the 
Almighty,  who  was  bound  to  no  other  law  but  his 
own  arbitrary  will. 

A  peculiarity  of  Persian  Islamism,  not  less  in- 
teresting is  Sufism,  a  mystical-speculative  tendency, 
some  of  which  was  deeply  pious  and  given  to  flights 
of  high  thinking.     Certain  it  is  that  this  was  not  a 
genuine  product  of  Arabian  Islamism,  even  though 
it  must  remain  undecided  whether  it  owes  its  origin 
to  ancient  Persian,  Indian  or  Neo-platonic  gnosti- 
cism.    According  to  the  Sufi  theory,  the  world  is 
a  flowing  out  of  and  flowing  back  into  God.     The 
soul  of  man  is  part  of  the  divine  being,  and  its 
destiny  is  union  with  God,  which  is  perfected  in 
three  planes.     Upon  the  first  plane,  the  plane  of 
law,  God  is  held  to  be  the  Lord  beyond  who  desires 
to  be  worshipped  with  all  the  traditional  ceremonies. 
Upon  the  second  plane,  comes  the  knowledge  that 
external  works  are  without  value  for  those  who 
know,    and   in   their   stead    there   must   be   placed 
an   ascetic   freeing   of  the   spirit   from   sensuality. 
Through  continuous  concentration  of  thought,  one 
may  arrive  finally  at  the  condition  of  enthusiasm 

287 


Religion  and  Historic  Faiths 

and  ecstasy  whicli,  by  frequent  recurrence,  leads  to 
the  third  and  highest  plane,  upon  which,  God  is  no 
longer  sought  outside  of  one's  self  either  by  ritual- 
istic or  ascetic  works,  but  upon  which,  the  imma- 
nence in  one's  own  spirit  come  into  consciousness. 
For  the  wise  man  and  the  mystic  who  has  attained 
this  knowledge,  the  varying  doctrines  and  ordi- 
nances of  the  different  religions  have  lost  their 
meaning.  Here  are  some  examples  of  the  thought- 
laden,  pious  poems  of  the  Persian  mystic,  Dschela- 
leddin  Rumi  (1207- 1275)  •* 

"When  the  pious  pray,  glory  and  praise,  indeed, 
Into  one,  all  worship-offerings  knead. 
What,  in  his  faith,  each  one,  praying  says. 
Not  the  water,  but  the  glass  divides. 
All  glory  and  all  praise  flow  but  for  the  one, 
Into  one  vessel;    God  pours  the  glasses  all. 
Know  this,  from  God's  light  emanates  each  pray'r, 
From  form  or  fissure  comes  the  false  that's  there. 
Upon  a  wall,  when  simple  sunlight  plays, 
The  one  sun's  shattered  to  a  thousand  rays. 

"Those  who  to  Caaba  make  pilgrimage. 
And  reach  at  length  their  goal. 
See  an  old  house  standing 
In  a  seedless  vale. 
They  went  there,  God  to  see 
And  now  they  circle  'round  the  house. 
Circling  thus  time  after  time,  they  wait 
Until  a  voice  sounds  on  the  air: 
Fools,   do  ye  call  upon  a  stone? 
Who  would  beg  bread  of  stone? 


♦The  German  versions  are  by  Tholuk  and  Rueckert, 


Islam 

If  'tis  God's  temple  that  ye  seek, 
Search  within;   within  your  hearts,  'tis  built. 
Happy  he  who  turns  in  unto  himself, 
Travelling  no  deserts  in  pilgrimage. 

"O  love,  I  bear  thee  witness.     Sad  as  the  night,  I  wept 
And  the  rays  of  thy  sun  brought  day  to  me. 
Soul  of  my  soul,  I  am  thou  and  thou  art  I, 
Thou  art  all,  and  thro'  thee,  I  woke  to  all. 
Sweetness  art  thou  and  intoxication. 
The  pearl-fraught  sea  art  thou,  the  mine  of  gold. 
He  who  comes  near  to  thee,  gives  up  his  soul  to  thee. 
Dies  when  thy  mouth  is  wroth,  dies  when  thine  eye  doth 

smile. 
First  doth  thy  favor  lure  the  loving  ones  to  thee. 
Then  comes  thy  wrath  and  chokes  the  weaklings  m  the 

fray. 
Dream-hosts  serve  thee  and  wraiths  of  fancy  go 
Forth  with  fiery  weapons  as  thy  battle-array ; 
Flame  flaunts  the  banner  of  thy  unending  sway, 
Burning  until  worlds  bow  down  before  thee. 
Each  moment,  terrors  new  thou  sendest  forth, 
Making  the  soul  tremble  as  a  little  child ; 
Then   if  the  soul  yield  and  thou  dost  enter  in, 
Victorious,— thy  coming  is  kindlier  than  she  had  thought. 

"O  bird,  for  freedom  calling. 
And  thou,  whom  the  body-cage  is  galling, 
O  soul,  wouldst  thou  be  free? 
Then  love  the  love  that  tameth  thee. 
'Tis  love  that  tightens  ev'ry  tie, 
'Tis  love  the  strongest  lock  can  pry ; 
Love's  the  pure  music  of  the  spheres. 
No  clanking  chains  therein  one  hears. 
The  world  is  God's  mirror  clear, 
Except  thy  eye  be  dazzled  here; 
Gaze  in  the  glass  with  loving  glance 
And  be  confounded  by  God's  brilliance; 

289 


Religion  and   Historic  Faiths 

Praise  him,  O  soul,  drunk  with  love, 
Winging  at  dawn,  like  the  lark,  above. 

"Make  no  complaint  that  thou  art  cast  in  chains, 
Make  no  complaint  that  thou  must  bear  earth's  pains; 
Complain  not  that  the  wide  world  is  restraint. 
The  world  becomes  a  jail  thro'  thy  complaint. 
Ask  not  how  will  this  riddle  finally  unfold; 
Beautifully,  tho'  thy  question  be  untold. 
Say  not:    Love  hath  forsaken  me. 
Whom  hath  love  forsaken?     I  beg  of  thee. 
Be  bold  when  grim  death  would  make  thee  fear, 
Death  yields  to  those  who  boldly  face  him  here. 
Chase  not  worldly  pleasures  as  the  fleet  hart; 
It  turns  into  a  lion  and  plays  the  hunter's  part. 
Cast  not  thyself  in  chains,  O  heart,  then  canst  thou 
Make  no  complaint  that  thou  art  cast  in  chains. 

"I  am  the  grape,  come  thou  and  be  the  vine. 
The  elm,  round  which  my  branching  arms  entwine. 
I  am  the  ivy,  cedar,  be  my  stem, 
That  I  stay  not  dead  on  the  moist  earth. 
I  am  the  bird,  come  thou  and  be  my  wings. 
That  I  may  soar  aloft  to  thy  high  heav'n. 
I  am  the  steed,  come  thou  and  be  my  spurs. 
That  I  may  strive  to  reach  thy  race-course  goal. 
I  am  the  bed  of  roses,  be  thou  my  rose, 
That  I  nourish  not  sorry  weeds. 
I  am  the  East,  O  sun,  rise  thou  in  me. 
From  my  cloud-fabric,  thou  light,  arise, 
I  am  the  night,  be  thou  my  crown  of  stars. 
That,  self-fearing,  I  tremble  not,  when  'tis  dark. 

•  ••••:• 

"Commingled  with  thy  soul  hath  mine 
As  water  mingles  with  the  wine. 
Who  can  the  wine  and  water  part? 
Who  rend  our  union,  mine  and  thine? 
My  larger  self  art  thou  become; 

290 


Islam 

This  smaller  self  will  I  resign. 
My  nature  hast  thou  taken  on; 
Shall,  nay,  must  I  not  take  thine? 
For  aye,  hast  thou  affirmed  me 
That  I  deny  thee  not  in  time. 
Thy  love-aroma  permeating  me 
Marrow  nor  bone  can  e'er  resign. 
Flutelike,  upon  thy  lips  I  rest, 
Lutelike,  upon  thy  lap,  recline. 
One  breath  lend  thou,  for  I  would  sigh, 
One  blow  strike  thou,  for  I  would  pine. 
Sweet  are  my  sighs  and  sweet  my  tears 
For  all  the  world  thinks  joy  is  mine. 
Deep  in  my  soul's  depths  dost  thou  rest 
And  mirror'd  there's  thy  heaven  sublime. 
O,  precious  jewel  in  my  shaft, 
O,  pearl  in  my  mussel-shrine." 


291 


CHRISTIAN  ORIGINS 

by  Otto  Pfleiderer,  D.D. 

Translated  by  Daniel  A.   Huebsch,   Ph.D. 

Uniform  with  this  volume^  $i -50  net 


"The  viewpoint  from  which  the  origin  of  Christianity  is 
herein  described  is  purely  historical;  the  Introduction  gives 
information  concerning  the  meaning  of  this  method  and  its 
relation  to  other  methods  of  treatment.  It  lies  in  the  nature 
of  things  that  such  a  purely  historical  description  of  the 
origin  of  our  religion  will  differ  vastly  and  in  many  ways  from 
the  traditional  Church  presentation.  Hence,  this  book  has 
not  been  written  for  such  readers  as  feel  satisfied  by  the 
traditional  church-faith.  It  may  hurt  their  feelings  easily 
and  confuse  them  in  their  convictions;  I  would  feel  sorry 
for  that  because  I  cherish  a  I'espect  for  every  honest  faith. 
But  I  know  that  in  all  classes  and  circles  of  society  to-day 
there  are  many  men  and  women  who  have  entirely  outgrown 
the  traditional  church-faith  and  who  are  possessed  of  an 
urgent  desire  to  learn  what  is  to  be  thought,  from  the  stand- 
point of  modern  science,  concerning  the  origin  of  this  faith 
and  concerning  the  eternal  and  temporal  in  it.  To  go  out 
toward  such  truth-seekers  is  a  duty  which  the  trained  repre- 
sentative of  science  dare  not  shirk ;  he  may  not  withdraw 
where  there  is  the  added  fear  that  untrained  leaders  will 
push  themselves  forward  and  increase  the  confusion  of  souls 
by  their  arbitrary  notions." — Extract  from  preface. 

"This  volume  is  in  our  judgment  the  most  important  rellRious  work 
that  has  appeared  during  the  past  year.  The  treatment  of  the 

subject  is  marke<i  by  reverence  no  less  than  breadth  of  intellectual  vision 
and  deep  research.  It  is  therefore,  a  work  that  appeals  to  men  and  women 
who  are  interested  in  the  higher  aspects  of  religion,  ethics  and  philosophy 
ami  who  are  reaching  out  for  something  more  than  modem  theological  creeds 
and  dogmas  have  given  them." — The  Arena. 

"  It  will  come  as  a  revelation  to  many  whose  ideas  have  been  completely 
muddled  by  the  combination  of  ignorant  and  evasive  teaching  current 
to-day.  and  the  predirtion  may  be  ventured  that  it  will  do  much  more,  in 
the  long  run,  to  fortify  religion  than  to  destroy  it."— The  Dial. 

"It  is  a  book  to  be  commended  to  all  thoughtful  persons  interested  in 
modern  critical  movements  in  theology." — The  World  To-Day. 

B.  W.  HUEBSCH        Publisher       New  York 


MORAL    EDUCATION 

By  Edward  Howard  Griggs 
fVith  Bibliography  and  Index ^  $i.6o  net 


A  discussion  of  the  whole  problem  of  moral  educa- 
tion: its  aim  in  relation  to  our  society  and  all  the 
means  through  which  that  aim  can  be  attained.  The 
book  thus  gives  a  complete  philosophy  of  education, 
focusing  upon  its  center,  the  cultivation  of  sound  and 
effective  character.  At  the  same  time  it  contains 
definite  applications  of  all  the  principles  developed  to 
the  practical  work  of  parents  and  teachers.  It  is 
therefore  of  value  alike  to  those  who  are  interested  in 
the  larger  problem  of  education  in  relation  to  Ufe  and 
to  those  who  are  engaged,  in  home  and  school,  in 
the  task  of  helping  children  to  grow  into  sane,  bal- 
anced and  helpful  men  and  women.  The  footnotes 
gather  up  much  of  the  wisest  thinking  on  moral  edu- 
cation hitherto  and,  as  well,  guide  readers  to  the  best 
modern  studies  of  childhood.  The  full,  annotated 
bibliography  adds  to  the  practical  working  value  of 
the  book  for  students. 


"It  is  easily  the  best  book  of  its  kind  yet  written  in 
America." — The  Literary  Digest. 

"  Edward  Howard  Griggs  has  written  a  notable  book  on 
'Moral  Education,'  easily  the  most  profound,  searching  and 
practical  that  has  been  written  in  this  country,  and  which, 
from  the  same  qualities,  will  not  be  easily  displaced  in  its 
primacy." — The  Cleveland  Leader. 

"The  book  is  a  notable  one,  wholesome  and  readable." 

— Educational  Review. 

B.  W.  HUEBSCH       Publisher       New  York 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  AT  LOS  ANGFI 
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